Big History 2: Macedonia

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Macedonia is located in the center of the Southern Balkans, north of ancient Hellas (Greece), east of Illyria, and west of Thrace. The name "Macedonia" is the oldest surviving name of a country on the continent of Europe. The ancient Macedonians were a distinct nation, ethnically, linguistically, and culturally different from their neighbors.

In 360 B.C., an extraordinary individual, Philip II of Macedonia (northern Greece), came to power. In less than a decade, he had defeated most of Macedonia's neighboring enemies.

According to the tradition generally accepted by the Greeks, the Macedonian kingdom, which under Philip and Alexander attained to such extraordinary greatness, was founded by Hellenic emigrants from Argos.

Into this vacuum came a new force from the kingdom of Macedon on the borders of Greece. Macedonian conquests in turn opened a period of three centuries in which Greek culture spread widely in Egypt and far into western Asia.