Hi there. You're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast. Bonus episode, Philip the Second and the rise of Macedon.

When I began the show almost a year and a half ago, in my mind, I envisioned the starting place for the podcast proper with the life of Alexander.

I had ventured to give enough background details on the world and events that

led up to the Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire, largely because I had felt that

Alexander's life had set the stage for so much of the Hellenistic period that we have covered so

far. I must admit, perhaps it was due to my fondness for Alexander the Great that I skimmed

over the extraordinary career

of the man who was directly responsible for many of Alexander's achievements, Philip

II, Alexander's father. It was he who took a backwards kingdom on the verge of collapse,

and through a combination of superb generalship, shrewd diplomatic maneuvering, and brilliant

reforms turned into the superpower

that would eventually conquer much of the known world. In celebration of the podcast hitting

100,000 downloads, I thought I should say thank you by going back to the beginning and covering the

life of Philip II, chronicling his meteoric rise and exemplary reign as King of Macedon.

The man known as Philip II was born in the year 383, 382 BC, son of the reigning king of

Macedon, Amintus III, and one of his many wives, Eurydike, a woman who was considered

a forerunner to Olympias in terms of ambition.

Prior to the 1970s, we had very little physical evidence on what Philip the Second actually

looked like, apart for some descriptions of wounds he received in battle.

The discovery and excavation of the great tumulus of Virgina in 1977 by the archaeologist

Manolis Andronikos has provided the enormous

bounty of information regarding the age of Philip II and Alexander the Great, among the most

...