Macedonian Empire

State · 675–292 BCE · at its largest around 318 BCE

From a rugged northern kingdom of horse-riding nobles, Macedon rose under Philip II, whose pike phalanx humbled the Greek city-states. His son Alexander, tutored by Aristotle, carried Greek language and culture as far as Egypt and India, opening the Hellenistic age.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Gaugamela (331 BCE)

In the guided tours

Alexander's world: How a Macedonian king overthrew the Persian Empire and left behind Greek-speaking kingdoms from Egypt to Afghanistan.

On its lands while it lasted

Eridu (c. 5,400–600 BCE): Regarded by the Sumerians as the first city; its temple to the god Enki was rebuilt many times from the Ubaid period onward.
Uruk (c. 5,000 BCE – c. 700 CE): Sumerian city on the Euphrates that by about 3100 BCE was probably the largest city in the world, centre of the first urban civilization.
Library of Ashurbanipal (c. 668 BCE): A royal collection of over 30,000 clay tablets and fragments gathered by Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, including the Epic of Gilgamesh; it is a key source for Mesopotamian literature.
First coins in Lydia (c. 620 BCE): Lydia in western Anatolia issued some of the earliest known coins, made of electrum; later King Croesus introduced coins of pure gold and silver.
Fall of Nineveh (612 BCE): A coalition of Babylonians and Medes sacked Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, bringing about the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BCE – 530 BCE): Founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which he expanded from Anatolia to Central Asia by conquering Media, Lydia and Babylon.
Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem (c. 587 BCE): Babylonian forces destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple and deported much of Judah's elite, beginning the Babylonian captivity.
Fall of Babylon (539 BCE): Cyrus the Great's Persian army took Babylon, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire; Cyrus later allowed deported peoples, including the Judeans, to return home.
Persepolis (c. 518 BCE): Ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire begun by Darius I, famous for its columned halls and reliefs; Alexander the Great burned it in 330 BCE.
Athenian democracy (508 BCE): The reforms of Cleisthenes in 508/507 BCE created a system in which male citizens voted directly on laws, the earliest well-documented democracy.
Socrates (c. 470 BCE – 399 BCE): Athenian philosopher who examined ethics through questioning dialogue; he was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock in 399 BCE.
Parthenon (447 BCE): Temple of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, built 447–432 BCE under Pericles; the supreme monument of classical Greek architecture.
Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE): Philosopher and polymath, student of Plato and tutor of Alexander the Great, who founded the Lyceum and wrote on logic, biology, ethics and politics.
Alexander the Great (356 BCE – 323 BCE): King of Macedon who conquered the Persian Empire and reached India, spreading Greek culture across the Near East before dying in Babylon at 32.
Campaigns of Alexander the Great (334–323 BCE): Alexander of Macedon crossed into Asia in 334 BCE, defeated Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela, conquered Egypt and the Persian Empire, and campaigned as far as the Indus valley before dying in Babylon in 323 BCE.