Pella Greece

Perdiccas I, a Dorian, establishes a kingdom (north of modern Greece) over the semibarbarous Macedonian tribes, which include Thracian and Illyrian elements, in about 700.

Herodotus states: "From Argos fled to the Illyrians three brothers of the descendants of Temenus, Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas; and passing over from the Illyrians into the upper parts of Macedonia they came to the city of Lebaia."

"Now that these descendants of Perdiccas are Greeks, as they themselves say, I myself chance to know and will prove it in the later part of my history.”

Macedon has begun to fall apart after the death of Alexander I in 454.

Macedonian tribes become almost completely autonomous, and are only loosely allied to the king.

Alcetas, the eldest son of Alexander I and an unknown queen, is a grandson of Amyntas I and Eurydice.

His brothers are Perdiccas II and Prince Philip(pus).

He is known for his alcohol dependence.

After six years as king, he is killed, together with his son Alexander, by his nephew Archelaus, a son of Perdiccas by an enslaved woman.

Alcetas's younger brother (Archelaus' father) Perdiccas then takes over the Macedonian throne.

Perdiccas’s son, a child of seven years, becomes the legitimate heir.

Philip, having enlisted the support of Athens and King Derdas of Elimea, is challenging his older brother Perdiccas for the Macedonian throne by 434 BCE.

Perdiccas responds by stirring up rebellion in a number of Athenian tribute cities, including Potidaea.

Athens responds with force, sending one thousand hoplites and thirty ships to Macedonia where they capture Therma.

They go on to besiege Pydna, where they are met by reinforcements of a further two thousand hoplites and forty ships.

However, as the Athenians are besieging Pydna, they receive news that Corinth has sent a force of sixteen hundred hoplites and four hundred light troops to support Potidaea.

In order to combat this new threat, Athens makes an alliance with Perdiccas, and proceeds to Potidaea.

Perdiccas immediately breaks the treaty and marches to Potidaea, while the Athenians are eventually victorious, the battle (along with the Battle of Sybota) directly leads to the Peloponnesian War.

Athens enters into an alliance with King Sitalces of Odrysian Thrace in 431 BCE after Nymphodorus, an Athenian, marries Sitalces’ sister.

Nymphodorus then negotiates an agreement between Athens and Perdiccas, where Perdiccas regains Therma.

As a result of this, Athens withdraws her support for Philip, and the Thracians promise to assist Perdiccas in capturing him.

In return, Perdiccas marches on the Chalcidians, the people he had originally persuaded to revolt.

Perdiccas betrays the Athenians once again and sends one thousand troops to support a Spartan assault on Acarnania in 429 but they arrive too late to help (Thucydides 2.80).

In response to this, Sitalkes of the Thracian Odrysian state invades Macedonia with the promise of support from Athens.

This support never materializes, and Perdiccas once again uses diplomacy to ensure the survival of Macedonia.

He promises the hand of his sister in marriage to the nephew of Sitalkes, who then persuades Sitalkes to leave.

After this, Perdiccas is allied to the Spartans.

Perdiccas helps the Spartan Brasidas in 424 BCE to take Amphipolis from the Athenians, one of her most important colonies, mainly for its ready access to timber for her fleets.

This is a severe blow to Athens, and will tie them to Macedonian timber for years to come, which strengthens Macedonia’s bargaining power considerably.

In return for this, the Spartans help Perdiccas secure his borders, by leading an assault on King Arrhabaeus of Lyncestis, with the promise of support from the Illyrians.

However, the Illyrians switch sides and attack Perdiccas and his Spartan allies.

The poorly trained Macedonian troops flee, and so the Spartans also retreat and attack the Macedonian baggage train in anger.

This sours relations between Macedonia and the Peloponnese for years to come, and pushes Perdiccas closer to Athens, with whom he will ally Macedon in 423.

Perdiccas had left the Athenians by 417 BCE and joined the Spartan-Argive alliance.

Bowing to Athenian pressure just four years later, Perdiccas breaks with the Peloponnese, and aids Athens in their attack on Amphipolis.

He dies in 413 BCE, leaving his son Archelaus as heir.

Archelaus, almost immediately after he takes power, is faced with a situation that allows him to completely reverse Macedon's relationship with Athens, which has been a major threat for the past half century.

The Athenians had experienced a crushing defeat at Syracuse in late 413 during which most of their ships were destroyed.

This leaves the Athenians in desperate need of a huge amount of timber to build new ships and Archelaus in a position to set the price.

Archelaus generously supplies the Athenians with the timber they need.

In recognition of this, the Athenians honor Archelaus and his children with the titles of proxenos and euergetes.

Archelaus, a son of Perdiccas II of Macedon by an enslaved woman, obtains the throne in 413 by murdering his uncle Alcetas II, his cousin Alexander, and his half-brother, a child of seven years, the legitimate heir.

Almost immediately after he takes power, Archelaus is faced with a situation that allows him to completely reverse Macedon's relationship with Athens, which has been a major threat for the past half century.

The crushing defeat experienced by the Athenians at Syracuse in late 413, during which most of their ships were destroyed, has left he Athenians in desperate need of a huge amount of timber to build new ships and Archelaus in a position to set the price.

Archelaus generously supplies the Athenians with the timber they need.

In recognition of this, the Athenians honor Archelaus and his children with the titles of proxenos and euergetes (”benefactor”).

Proxeny or Proxenia is an arrangement whereby a citizen (chosen by the city) hosts foreign ambassadors at his own expense, in return for honorary titles from the state.

Euripides, who maintains friendships with the philosophers Anaxagoras and Socrates and with Sophists such as Protagoras and Prodicus, and whose plays reflect his contemporaries’ ethics, rhetoric, and science, may have been prosecuted for impiety by the demagogue Cleon.

His contemporaries associate him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes.

Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as a corrupting influence, Euripides chooses a voluntary exile in old age.

Euripides had left Athens shortly after 408 for the “rustic court “of Archelaus, king of Macedon, and here creates one of his greatest tragic plays, The Bacchae.

He dies in here in 406.

Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides.

For example, it is possible that he never visited Macedon at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were also offered to other artists.