Dardani

The Illyrian kingdom of Bardylis (Bardhyllus), a tribal chief, becomes a formidable local power on the northwestern frontier of Macedon in the mid-fourth century BCE.

Bardyllis succeeds in bringing various tribes in a single organization and soon makes Dardania into a formidable power in the Balkans, resulting in 393 BCE in a change of relations with the Illyrians and Macedonians.

Unlike previous Illyrian kings, Bardylis combined military and economic developments.

His subjects, the Damastini, began to issue a fine silver coinage from around 395 BCE in the Illyrian city of Damastion, adopting a version of the standard and some emblems of the powerful Chalcidian League.

They also export silver in ingot form.

The Illyrians in 385 BCE attack the Molossians.

Dionysius of Syracuse aids the Illyrian attack in order to place Alcetas, a refugee in his court, on the throne.

Dionysius plans to control all the Ionian Sea.

Sparta intervenes on behalf of the Molossians despite having been aided by two thousand Greek hoplites and five hundred suits of Greek armor.

The Illyrians are defeated by the Spartans led by Agesilaus but not before ravaging the region and killing fifteen thousand Molossians.

Amyntas III of Macedon seeks Spartan aid against the growing threat of Olynthus, seat of the Chalcidian League, and the Spartans eagerly respond.

That Olynthus is backed by Athens and Thebes, rivals to Sparta for the control of Greece, provides them with an additional incentive to break up this growing power in the north.

Amyntas thus concludes a treaty with the Spartans, who assist him in reducing Olynthus (379).

He also enters into a league with Jason of Pherae, and assiduously cultivates the friendship of Athens.

Aat a Panhellenic congress of the Lacedaemonian allies in 371 BCE, he votes in support of the Athenians' claim and joins other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis.

With Olynthus defeated, Amyntas is now able to conclude a treaty with Athens and keep the timber revenues for himself.

Amyntas ships the timber to the house of the Athenian Timotheus, in the Piraeus.

By his wife, Eurydice, he has three sons: Alexander II, Perdiccas III and the youngest of whom is the famous Philip II of Macedon.

Amyntas dies at an advanced age, leaving his throne to his eldest son, Alexander, who is very young in 371 when he ascends to the throne.

This causes immediate problems for the new king as enemies to the dynasty resume war.

Alexander is simultaneously faced with an Illyrian invasion from the northwest and an attack from the east by the pretender Pausanias.

Pausanias quickly captures several cities and threatens the queen mother, who is at the palace in Pella with her young sons.

Alexander defeats his enemies with the help of the Athenian general Iphicrates, who had been sailing along the Macedonian coast on the way to recapture Amphipolis.

Alexander II of Macedon had successfully gained control of Larissa and several other cities but, betraying a promise he had made, had put garrisons in them, provoking a hostile reaction from Thebes, the leading military power in Greece at this time.

The Theban general Pelopidas, after driving the Macedonians from Thessaly, now neutralizes Alexander by favoring the ambitions of Alexander's brother-in-law Ptolemy of Aloros, and forces Alexander to abandon his alliance with Athens in favor of Thebes.

As part of this new alliance, Alexander is compelled to hand over hostages, including his younger brother Philip.

At the instigation of Ptolemy, Alexander is assassinated during a festival.

Although Alexander's brother Perdiccas III becomes the next king, he is under age, and Ptolemy is appointed regent.

Perdiccas kills Ptolemy in 365 BCE and assumes control of Macedon’s government.

Of the reign of Perdiccas we have very little information, knowing only that he was at one time engaged in hostilities with Athens on account of Amphipolis, and that he was distinguished for his patronage of men of letters.

Among these, we are told that Euphraeus, a disciple of Plato, rose to so high a place in his favor as completely to govern the young king, and exclude from his society all but philosophers and geometers.

He also served as Theorodokos (sacred envoy-receivers, whose duty is to host and assist the Theoroi, or "viewers" before Panhellenic Games and Festivals) in the Epidaurian Panhellenic games of about 365 BCE.

Perdiccas tries to reconquer upper Macedonia from the Illyrian Bardylis in 360 BCE, but the expedition ends in disaster, with the king killed in a catastrophic battle.

Philip, originally appointed regent for his infant nephew Amyntas IV, the son of Perdiccas, soon manages to take the kingdom for himself, ascending the throne in 359 as Philip II.

The Illyrians continue to raid from the northwest, the Paeonians from the north, and foreign powers continues to support two claimants to the throne other than Philip, a man of exceptional energy, diplomatic skill, and ruthlessness.

Philip's military skills and expansionist vision of Macedonian greatness bring him early success.

He first has to reestablish a situation which had been greatly worsened by the defeat against the Illyrians, Macedon's permanent enemies.

The Illyrians prepare to close in; the Paeonians, forced northward by the growth of Macedon, are raiding from the north, the Thracians have sacked and invaded the eastern regions of the country, while the Athenians have landed at Methoni on the coast, a contingent under a Macedonian pretender called Argeus.

Using diplomacy, Philip pushes back the Paeonians and Thracians promising tributes, and crushes the three thousand Athenian hoplites.

Bardyllis is killed in battle after Philip rejects his offer of peace based on retaining conquered lands.

Momentarily free from his opponents, Philip concentrates on strengthening his internal position and, above all, his army, introducing more rigorous training and employing mercenaries.

His most important innovation is doubtless the introduction of the phalanx infantry corps, armed with the famous sarissa, an exceedingly long spear, at this time the most important army corps in Macedonia.

This enables him to inflict defeats on the Illyrians and other northern enemies such as Paeonia, which he invades in 358.

Bardylis, ruler of Dardania, had assumed control of much of the region of present-day Macedonia in 359 after killing Macedon’s king Perdiccas III.

After the death of Bardylis in the following year, Grabos becomes the most powerful Illyrian king.

Bardyllis had a son named Cleitus the Illyrian, a daughter named Bircenna, and a grandson named Bardyllis II.

The Illyrian kingdom has become a formidable local power.

Philip defeats the Illyrians decisively in 358 BCE, however, in a battle that already suggests a master of war, and assumes control of their territory as far as Lake Ohrid.

An Illyrian kingdom based in modern-day Shkodër, Albania, remains an important factor in the region, however.

Philip makes a string of advantageous “marriages” at the same time, some more official than others and scarcely amounting to more than politically slanted concubinage; one of these is to an Illyrian princess, Audata.

Philip of Macedon, who in 345 BCE must again deal with the Illyrians, incurs a bad leg wound in the process.

Philip’s wound does not incapacitate him completely, however; in the following year, he has the energy to reorganize Thessaly into its four old divisions, or “tetrachies.”

Philip meanwhile continues his tactic of setting the Greek city-states, such as Thebes and Sparta, against each other, and penetrates Greece without war, by winning and buying friends among the politicians of the smaller cities and intervening occasionally with subsidies or a force of mercenaries in their local disturbances.