| Siege of Perinthus | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The location of the city of Perinthus in Thrace. | |||||
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| Belligerents | |||||
 Macedonia |  Achaemenid Empire  Athens | ||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||
| Philip II of Macedon | Artaxerxes III Chares of Athens | ||||
The siege of Perinthus (340 BC) was an unsuccessful attempt by Philip II of Macedon to defeat the Athenian forces at Perinthus, and take the city. The siege was conducted alongside an unsuccessful siege of Byzantium. Both sieges took place in the period just before the Fourth Sacred War. [1]
In 358 BC, Philip II of Macedon marched against the Illyrians, and defeated them at the Battle of Erigon Valley, killing about 7,000 Illyrians. Later that year, Macedonia and Athens came to an agreement, that Macedonia would give Athens Amphipolis and, in return, Athens would give Macedonia Pydna. Philip broke his promise by keeping both cities. This led to Athens declaring war on Macedonia. Many other campaigns were conducted against Athens.[ citation needed ]
In 356 BC, Philip conquered the town of Crenides and changed its name to Philippi.
In 349 BC, Philip started the siege of Olynthus. Olynthus was formerly allied with Macedonia but then had later switched their allegiance to Athens.
In 345 BC, Philip conducted another campaign against the Ardiaei, under their King Pleuratus I, during which Philip was seriously wounded in the lower right leg by an Ardian soldier. [2]
In 342 BC, Philip led a great military expedition north against the Scythians, conquering the Thracian fortified settlement of Eumolpia which he renamed after himself, Philippopolis (modern-day Plovdiv).
In the early spring of 340 BC, Philip started his campaign to besiege Perinthus. The city stood on a peninsula, connected to the land by a 200 yard wide heavily fortified isthmus. The coast was protected by cliffs, making any naval attack nearly impossible.
The defenders of the cities were supported by Byzantium, as well as the Achaemenid Empire. The Athenian navy, under the control of Chares of Athens, kept the Macedonians out of the seas and helped maintain naval superiority. Reinforcements and supplies reached the city from its allies, and the Macedonian fleet was unable to stop the reinforcements from reaching the city.
After several weeks laying siege to the city, the Macedonians finally broke through the outer wall. But to their dismay, they reached a new wall inside the city that the defenders had built between the houses. This new wall was much more solid and stronger than the previous one. Philip's army was more numerous and had siege engines. However, since Perinthus was receiving constant aid from Byzantium and the Achaemenids, the siege was difficult to maintain. Eventually, Philip had found the challenges of successfully besieging the city too much, and so withdrew. [3]
After the failed siege of Perinthus, Philip focused most of his attention on Byzantium. In the late summer of 340 BC, he led half of his army to Byzantium, but the city refused to surrender to him and prepared to resist. Most of the Byzantian army was still at Perinthus, but the defenders who remained at Byzantium managed to survive the initial attack. The Byzantines received aid in the form of weaponry and men from their allies at Chios, Cos, and Rhodes. After several weeks of laying siege to Byzantium, Philip decided to launch one last surprise assault on the walls, using nothing but moonlight to aid the night attack. However, the barking of dogs was said to have betrayed the attack, and Philip decided once again, to give up and withdraw. [4]
The summer of 338 BC, Philip successfully defeated Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC). After Philip's death, Philip's son, Alexander, later defeated the Achaemenids on several occasions and conquered the entirety of the Achaemenid Empire, greatly expanding the Macedonian Empire. [5]
Amyntas III was king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia from 393/2 to 388/7 BC and again from 387/6 to 370 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty through his father Arrhidaeus, a son of Amyntas, one of the sons of Alexander I. His most famous son is Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.
Byzantium or Byzantion was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name Byzantion and its Latinization Byzantium continued to be used as a name of Constantinople sporadically and to varying degrees during the thousand year existence of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was commonly referred to by the former name of that city, the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium was colonized by Greeks from Megara in the 7th century BC and remained primarily Greek-speaking until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in AD 1453.
Macedonia, also called Macedon, was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the southwest, Illyria to the northwest, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.
This article concerns the period 349 BC – 340 BC.
This article concerns the period 369 BC – 360 BC
This article concerns the period 359 BC – 350 BC.
This article concerns the period 339 BC – 330 BC.
This article concerns the period 329 BC – 320 BC.
This is a timeline of ancient Greece from its emergence around 800 BC to its subjection to the Roman Empire in 146 BC.
Philip II of Macedon was the king (basileus) of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty, founders of the ancient kingdom, and the father of Alexander the Great.
Year 344 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Rutilus and Torquatus. The denomination 344 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The Second Macedonian War was fought between Macedon, led by Philip V of Macedon, and Rome, allied with Pergamon and Rhodes. Philip was defeated and was forced to abandon all possessions in southern Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor. During their intervention, although the Romans declared the "freedom of the Greeks" against the rule from the Macedonian kingdom, the war marked a significant stage in increasing Roman intervention in the affairs of the eastern Mediterranean, which would eventually lead to Rome's conquest of the entire region.
Antipater was a Macedonian general and statesman under the successive kingships of Philip II of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great. In the wake of the collapse of the Argead house, his son Cassander would eventually come to rule Macedonia as a king in his own right.
Ochus, known by his dynastic name Artaxerxes III, was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 359/58 to 338 BC. He was the son and successor of Artaxerxes II and his mother was Stateira.
Sestos was an ancient city in Thrace. It was located at the Thracian Chersonese peninsula on the European coast of the Hellespont, opposite the ancient city of Abydos, and near the town of Eceabat in Turkey.
The Battle of Chaeronea was fought in 338 BC, near the city of Chaeronea in Boeotia, between Macedonia under Philip II and an alliance of city-states led by Athens and Thebes. The battle was the culmination of Philip's final campaigns in 339–338 BC and resulted in a decisive victory for the Macedonians and their allies.
Cersobleptes was the son of Cotys I, king of the Odrysians in Thrace, on whose death in September 360 BC he inherited the throne.
The Cretan War was fought by King Philip V of Macedon, the Aetolian League, many Cretan cities and Spartan pirates against the forces of Rhodes and later Attalus I of Pergamum, Byzantium, Cyzicus, Athens, and Knossos.
Under the reign of Philip II, the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, initially at the periphery of classical Greek affairs, came to dominate Ancient Greece in the span of just 25 years, largely thanks to the character and policies of its king. In addition to utilising effective diplomacy and marriage alliances to achieve his political aims, Philip II was responsible for reforming the ancient Macedonian army into an effective fighting force. The Macedonian phalanx became the hallmark of the Macedonian army during his reign and the subsequent Hellenistic period. His army and engineers also made extensive use of siege engines. Chief among Philip's Thracian enemies was the ruler Kersebleptes, who may have coordinated a temporary alliance with Athens. In a series of campaigns stretching from 356 to 340 BC, Philip II managed to ultimately subjugate Kersebleptes as a tributary vassal, conquering much of Thrace in the process. Philip II also fought against the Illyrian king Bardylis, who threatened Macedonia proper, and against Grabos II and Pleuratus in Illyria. In his newly conquered territories, he founded new cities such as Philippi, Philippopolis, Herakleia Sintike, and Herakleia Lynkestis.
The kingdom of Macedonia was an ancient state in what is now the Macedonian region of northern Greece, founded in the mid-7th century BC during the period of Archaic Greece and lasting until the mid-2nd century BC. Led first by the Argead dynasty of kings, Macedonia became a vassal state of the Achaemenid Empire of ancient Persia during the reigns of Amyntas I of Macedon and his son Alexander I of Macedon. The period of Achaemenid Macedonia came to an end in roughly 479 BC with the ultimate Greek victory against the second Persian invasion of Greece led by Xerxes I and the withdrawal of Persian forces from the European mainland.
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