Ancient Macedonia

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Day to day life in ancient Macedonia was significantly more difficult in comparison to life in the rest of Greece. Located in the northeastern corner of the Greek peninsula Macedonia was comprised of mountainous land and lowland valleys to compliment them, making it notably colder than the rest of Greece which created complications in communication and travel. Macedonians were known to be barbaric, making hunting, fighting and drinking their most famous attributes. The people of Macedonia were looked down upon by the other Greeks because of their considerably different way of life in comparison. Despite their abundant natural resources such as silver, gold, copper, iron and timber their economy was prohibitively weak. The government was a monarchy …show more content…

The first of these threats was the Illyrians who were prepared to move further down into Macedonia, followed by the Paeonians who set out to invade the lower parts of Macedonia. While these two forces wanted to move in on Macedonian territory two pretenders to the throne were ready to claim their place as king, Algaeus who was backed by the Athenians and Pausanias who was backed by the king of Thrace. One or all of these threats would have led to the immediate fall of the Macedonia. Peridicaas had an infant son, Amyntas, making him the heir to the throne after the king’s passing. Traditionally in a situation like this Philip would have been appointed regent until his nephew was old enough to take on his duties but Macedonia was in a fragile state and quickly running out of time so the assembly simply appointed Philip the king instead. The detrimental circumstances that he had just been thrown into were seemingly impossible to turn around but Philip proved himself to be the kind of quick thinking and intelligent ruler that had the ability to turn desperate Macedonia into a supreme power in Greece. In just one year Philip eliminated all of the impending threats towards Macedonia but he did so through methods that were not always conventional. Philip II was an individual who was willing to do whatever it took to change Macedonia into a great nation state using military force, bribery, and marriage to do

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