Ancient Macedonia before Alexander the Great and Philip II

[Music] to truly understand how any great Empire came to power we must explore its oldest roots this is especially true when it comes to Macedonia the birthplace of the legendary king philip ii and his son Alexander the Great a man who needs no introduction long before there was an empire that spanned across three continents there was a tiny Kingdom on the very edge of the Greek world whose humble beginnings made possible the great conquests we all know today welcome to our video on the history of ancient Macedonia shout out to one of our most cherished partners Magellan TV for sponsoring this video we love these sponsorships from Magellan TV as this new type of documentary streaming membership has the richest and most varied history content available anywhere ancient modern current early modern war biography and even non-historical genres like science and crime are historical in nature Magellan TV will give you insight and knowledge about the topics you're passionate about this service run by filmmakers has over 2000 documentaries across many series and one of the most impressive playlists covers the warriors of different eras from the Vikings to the Templars and from the Romans to the Mongols you can stream Magellan from anywhere on any device without any ads and no limited access new programs are added on a weekly basis and many of them are available in 4k if you haven't tried out Magellan yet you have to give it a try at Magellan tv.com slash kings and Generals for a free one month membership trial thanks to Magellan for supporting our Channel according to the historian Nicholas Hammond the earliest ancestors of the Macedonians emerged as semi-nomadic shepherds in the array Stian Highlands during the Late Bronze Age these seasonal pastoralists were not part of the Greek world which at the time was dominated by the masini and Pallas culture of the southern Peloponnese this is evidenced by their absence in the works of Homer whose epics were a fantastical retelling of this ancient era in book 2 of the Iliad the iconic poet compiles an extensive list of the contingent of Allied Greeks sailing to Troy a list that stops just south of the traditional territory of Macedon the Macedonians only emerged in Greek records well after the bronze age collapse after the warlike Dorian subgroup of the Greeks invaded the peninsula significantly changing the ethnic makeup of the land it is possible that the Macedonians were a Dorian tribe which would explain their appearance in the historical records during these tumultuous migrations it was Herodotus the ancient father of history who transcribed the story of how the kingdom of Macedonia was founded according to him the tale begins in the city-state of argos where there lived three brothers Gowan ease era pass and Perdiccas the brothers were descendants of timorous a legendary Dorian Greek warrior who himself was a descendant of the great Heracles sometime in the early 6th century BC the brothers were exiled from their home in argos and made their way north to the iranian highlands where the barbaric Macedonians dwelled divided into primitive pastoralists tribes the siblings found work as shepherds for a local petty chieftain but this did not last for long the chieftain noticed that's the bread his wife was making for perdicas the eldest of the siblings always swelled to twice the size of everyone else's bread during their communal meals interpreting this as a sign that Perdiccas was destined for greatness and therefore was a threat to his reign the chieftain ordered all three brothers to leave his lands Perdiccas remarked that he should at least be paid for the shepherding work he had done but the King refused instead snidely offering him a patch of sunlight shining through their stables smoke hole rather than showing outrage Perdiccas calmly accepted the payment offered using his knife to draw a circle around the Sun patch claiming it for his own before leaving the king was bewildered until one of his priests informed him that this was an ill omen from the gods enraged the petty despot sent horsemen to kill the brothers but perdicas and his siblings managed to evade death by jumping into the Halleck Moon River and letting the currents carry them away they scene came upon the gardens of Midas a vibrant Rose field that's the base of Mount Vernon from there the three brothers made a new home and eventually garnered enough support to unite or conquer all the desperate Macedonian tribes perdicas ascended as the first king of a united macedonian people while the sunlight he had claimed from the petty king became the emblem of his royal house the beginner's son perdicas and his followers then migrated eastwards out of the array Stian Highlands and into the amethy in play there they set up a center of power in a settlement called a guy by the 6th century BC the Macedonians had established control over a strip of land from bhatia to the Aegean coast driving out the Thracian tribes who has lived there previously it was here they settled and made their kingdom whether or not this story has any truth to it is unknown but Herodotus claims that it is the tale that the Macedonians of his time some two hundred years after the legend claimed was the genesis of their kingdom Perdiccas his dynasty would become known as the archaeans named after their ancestral homeland of argos it would be their bloodline that would rule Macedonia in an uninterrupted succession right up until Alexander the Great and his son it is here that we should take a brief tangent to explore the culture of the Macedonians under the Arceus dynasty particularly in the context of how it was perceived by the Greek cities to their south kings of Macedon certainly had a place in the Greek world in the late fifth century BC one lender of the Archaea at royal family named Alexander no not that one sought to participate in the Olympic Games an event open only to Greeks many protested that Alexander was not a Greek and therefore could not enter the sacred competition but the Helena Duke I the Olympic judges ruled that by virtue of Alexander's ancestor all ties to Argos that the Macedonian had the right to compete according to herodotus Alexander entered the foot race and won equal first and yet despite their ruling families undeniable link to the Eleniak world the common people of Macedonia were still inherently alien to the traditionally xenophobic Greeks Herodotus himself refers to Macedonia not as a Greek kingdom but as a kingdom of Macedonians ruled over by Greeks the historian Thucydides who chronicled the Peloponnesian War recalls three main groups fighting in that denominated conflict the Greeks who constituted the main belligerence of Athens and Sparta the illyrian barbarians and the Macedonians who he considered to be neither fully Greek nor fully barbarian the state of semi Hellenic Limbo the Macedonians lived in was a product of their way of life which to the Greeks seemed both recognizable and hardly strange at the same time the Macedonians were a predominantly rural village dwelling people as opposed to the Greeks who considered their urban policy based way of life the hallmark of civilization hunting was a huge aspect of Highland living and the Macedonians delighted in chasing dangerous game like boars and even gyeom's successful hunts were celebrated with banquets where the Macedonians reveled heartily and drank undiluted wine this horrified their southern guests who saw such a practice as an utter lack of self-control and good taste furthermore the Macedonians lived under the rule of a king this was unfathomable to the Greeks particularly the Athenians who prided themselves on their public assemblies councils and elected magistrates in their eyes no Greek could ever live under a monarchy so the Macedonians could not be Greeks with that said the religious rights practiced in the north would have been comfortably familiar to an Athenian the Macedonians worshipped more or less the same gods in the same ways as their southern abus they were particularly reverent of Zeus and his son Heracles who they believed was the ancient ancestor of their royal algae at Lyme the macedonian language remains an enigma to us the algae at Kings performed their courtly functions in attic a prestigious Athenian dialect of Greek as a result the native Macedonian tongue spoken by the common people is scarcely attested to through footnotes in literary sources ancient coins and a handful of inscriptions we have a scant 200 or so words of the Macedonian language most of these words have Greek roots but zamora Valyrian and Thracian origin ultimately ancient Macedonian was probably a highly divergent dialect of ancient Greek a tongue that would have sounded vaguely familiar yet distorted and strange to the average Athenian or Spartan with all that said the people's outside of the Greek world rarely made any distinction between Macedonians and Greeks who they generally saw as two branches of the same people the Persians in particular referred to the Greeks as Yanis meaning Ionians and to the Macedonians as Yanis a Kabara meaning Ionians with hats that look like shields it would in fact be the Persians who would indirectly launch the RG at monarchs into political relevancy a convenient segue we will use to jump back into the history of the Macedonian Kingdom in 510 BC the great king of kings himself Darius the first led a campaign to subdue the Scythian tribes in the central Balkans this failed and Darius returned home leaving his top general maker cerbus in charge of subjugating VP onions and other tribes along the stream and river from here the ancient sources tend to contradict one another but the most reliable tale relates that unnoticed the first the reigning king of Macedonia sought to spare his realm from the ravages of war that the Persians brought to his doorstep to do so he presented earth and water to the Persian Authority submitting his realm as a vassal of the acrimony to Empire three decades later a new king of kings had arisen to the throne in Babylon Xerxes was determined to resume his father's European campaigns and so prepared a force to invade the Greek mainland at this time the raining out yet King was Alexander the first the same man who had competed in the Olympics some years earlier Alexander was a shrewd and unscrupulous ruler determined to come out on top whatever the outcome of the war nevertheless he was formally an obedient vassal to the Persian king so he mustered a force of cavalry man and joined Xerxes his army as it marched southwards meanwhile the allied Greek army had decided to meet their foe as the piñas refer when informed of this Alexander sent secret messengers ahead to the Greek encampment presenting himself as a spy within the Persian army he advise the Greeks against making their stand there for Xerxes was taking the long way around west of Olympus and planned on flanking them from behind where they would surely be destroyed reluctantly the Greeks heeded the Macedonians warnings and withdrew Alexander probably did prevent the Greeks from being slaughtered while the retreat allowed the Persians to conquer Thessaly without any real resistance through diplomatic cunning the shrewd Macedonian had pleased both sides the following year of the campaign saw Alexander stand with the Persian army commanded by general madonnas as they faced down a Spartan led coalition of Greeks at a plain near Platero for decades historians have hotly debated what role the Macedonian King played in the famous battle that followed but Herodotus tells the following tale before the armies clashed augurs on both sides had performed divinations and both the Persians and Greeks were told the gods did not favor an attack however with his supplies dwindling and Greek reinforcements trickling in day by day Mardonius decided that despite the gods warnings he would attack at dawn when learning of this Alexander rode under cover of darkness into the green camp informing their commander Lysanias of Sparta of the Persian generals intentions the Greeks were thus able to prevent themselves from being ambushed or outflanked and thanks to Alexander's warnings emerged victorious at the Battle of Plataea following this last great defeat the Persian army fled eastwards abandoning Europe entirely through this Macedon was once more an independent Kingdom historians both ancient and modern alike have long argued over Alexander's motives during the Persian Wars however it seems most likely that he was neither a pantalones nor a Persian sympathizer as a vassal to the Akama needs he had gladly played the role of the collaborator helping the massive Empire subjugate the warlike tribes on his borders when the Persians had fulfilled their purpose to him he helped the Greeks take them down from the inside the a camenisch retreat left a power vacuum in the lands surrounding Macedonia which Alexander used to expand the borders of his kingdom threefold he had played both sides and come out on top the next king to ascend after Alexander was Perdiccas the second and it would be under his reign that Macedonia would play a key role in the second of ancient Greece's two most famous conflicts the Peloponnesian War in the years leading up to the conflict Macedonia had been gradually inserting itself into the geopolitical sphere of the Greek world they had become a friend and ally of Athens and according to some sources the legendarily powerful Athenian Navy was built using Macedonian timber this was not to last as Athens was nothing if not aggressively expansionist in 437 seeking to seize dominance over the trade coming out of the northern Aegean ian's establish the colony of antha police right upon the doorstep of macedonia this puts four southerners a little too close for comfort for Perdiccas so when the spartans equally incensed by athenian expansionism declared war the macedonian king brought his realm into the conflict on the side of sparta early on the algae at monarch foiled an Athenian attempt to convince a Thracian King City Cleese to invade his realm forging a marriage alliance with the latter this victory was short-lived as a habius a local ruler in upper macedonia launched himself into open rebellion against his King verdict us marched upon the rebels with the support of his ally the Spartan general pracetas but then spooked by a Hebei as his vast host of fearsome illyrian allies he fled with his troops in the night without even bothering to tell the Spartans abandoning brass udders to his fate thankfully for the Spartans proceedures was able to orchestrate an ingenious retreat and in revenge began to pillage the Macedonian countryside having now made an enemy of the Spartans Perdiccas flipped sides and joined the Athenians it is here the capricious macedonian king disappears from the historical record last seen in 414 bc on an expedition with the athenians to retake Amphipolis which was then in spartan hands perdicas was succeeded by his son Arkel as the first who managed to phase Macedon out of the war the Athenian has had just lost a huge fleet during a disastrous campaign in Syracuse and we're in desperate need of good timber Archelaus used the leverage he now possessed as a supplier of timber to reassert hegemony over his northern Aegean economic interests ending the reason macedonian entered into war in the first place he was also probably the one who finally ended a Hebei assist rebellion taking advantage of the hard-won stability in his realm our Calais assent to overhauling the infrastructure of his lands building roads and fortresses while modernizing his army to be able to go toe-to-toe with the best balances the Greek world had to offer lucidity 'he's the famous historian of the Peloponnesian War praised the reign of his Macedonian contemporary claiming our class surpassed the achievements of all eight kings who came before him it was under our class that the so-called Greek if occasion of Macedon really got underway a slow hellenization that saw the Highland Kingdom morph into something resembling its southern neighbours slowly transforming into a more urbanized society rks most likely orchestrated the construction of pelham the city quickly grew to become a hub of international trade boasting a massive agora that featured exotic products flowing in from both east and west our colossus royal palace was designed with a distinctly greek style one source claims that he invited suckss the greatest painter in the Hellenic world to decorate his royal courtroom with a mural of Pan the god of the wild other artists were also brought in to enrich the Macedonian cultural fabric the most famous example being Euripides one of Athens's most famous playwrights the poet spent his last year's in Macedon writing plays about the king and his ancient ancestors that were performed in the lavish Athenian style theaters of Pella in 399 BC our coleus died while on a hunt possibly because of a jealous conspiracy born of a homosexual love affair he had with a page in his court his death resulted in a six-year interregnum as his kingdom was torn apart by different claimants to the throne this hiccupped was tenuously ended by the Ascension of amyntas the third whose reign was still plagued by a constant war first with the Durrani illyrians who took advantage of the instability of Macedon to launch a massive invasion and later with the kal Citian leaked to the south nevertheless Macedon managed to come out on top of both of these conflicts and now the reigning king alexander ii no still not that one pressed his kingdoms advantage by launching an invasion into Thessaly this was foiled by Theban intervention and Alexander was forced to send his younger brother Philip as a hostage to Thebes yes that Philip the young Philip would learn well during his time in Thebes but when he returned to Macedon to claim the throne in 364 BC no one could have predicted that it would be he who would expand the borders of his Highland Kingdom beyond anything anyone ever imagined nor could they have foreseen that it would be his son Alexander the third yes that Alexander who would forever cement Macedonia as one of the most famous kingdoms in world history the ancient Greeks proud in their democratic traditions could never have foreseen that one day they would all oh their allegiance not only to a king but to a Macedonian King however to those of us paying attention the conquests of Philip and Alexander are anything but surprising for their ancestors had long before them forged a land of shrewd monarchs and Hardy people whose ability to assert themselves politically economically and militarily against the powerhouses of the ancient world was second to none we will talk about the Greek world more in our future videos so make sure you are subscribed to our channel and have 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Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 1,119,276

Keywords: Macedon, Makedon, Alexander, Alexander the Great, Philip II, Hellenic, Greek, kingdom, empire, rome, macedonian wars, persian invasion, ancient history, ancient greece, ancient macedonia, ancient macedon, historia civilis, kings and generals, history lesson, full documentary, decisive battles, documentary film, military history, world history, animated documentary, history channel, animated historical documentary, history documentary, king and generals, ancient rome, roman empire

Id: FXX1FVYysjQ

Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 08 2020