Alexander the Great

Athens loses its empire

406 BC: Trial of the generals after the Battle of Arginusae

404 BC: “After the defeat at Aegospotami, the Aegean cities passed under the control of Sparta... Thirty pro-Spartan oligarchs were set up in Athens, with a Spartan garrison.” (Bradley 2001: 281)

403 BC: “Democracy was fully restored in Athens in 403.” (Bradley 2001: 281)

399 BC: Trial and execution of Socrates

404 – 371 BC: Spartan leadership of Greece

371 – 361 BC: Theban leadership of Greece

359 – 336 BC: Philip of Macedon

Macedonia today

357 BC: Philip marries Olympias

356 BC: Olympias gives birth to Alexander

Aristotle

• Student of Plato

• 343 BC: brought to Macedonia by Philip and hired to tutor Philip’s son, Alexander, and Alexander’s friends.

The Philipics of Demosthenes

351 BC: The first Philipic

346 BC: The second Philipic

341 BC: The third Philipic

338 BC: The Battle of Chaeronea

The Macedonian Phalanx

Sarissas in rear row hid manoeuvres going on behind

Sarissas – 6 metre long spears that really hurt if you found yourself on the wrong end of them

Professional soldiers (who could therefore afford to fight all year round)

Philip dies in 336 BC

– Assassinated in 336 B.C.E. shortly before a planned invasion of Persia.

– Killed by a man named Pausanius. A member of his body guard and, possibly, a scorned lover.

334 BC: The Battle of the Granicus

333 BC: The Battle of Issus

332-331 BC: The entry into Egypt

326 BC: Invasion of India

The End of Alexander’s CampaignAs for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand war elephants.

- Plutarch

323 BC: Death of Alexander

The Diadochoi Wars

The sources

• Only fragments remaining from contemporary sources

• Five sources who wrote within 3 and 5 centuries after his death

• Arrian draws on Ptolemy and Aristobulus

• Plutarch draws on Callisthenes