In Search of Alexander - Classical sites in northern Greece

To many Classical Greeks the Macedonians were barbarians. Hailing from beyond Mount Olympos, only relatively recently had they abandoned nomadism for settled agriculture and life in cities, and they persisted with the  system of hereditary kingship that city-state Greeks considered politically primitive. 

But military monarchy served the Macedonians well. In three dramatic decades in the fourth century bc which changed the ancient world, Philip II subdued most of the southern Balkans and his son, the legendary conquerer Alexander the Great, extended Macedonian rule through Anatolia, the Middle East and into Central and South Asia. 

Mainstream Greeks had previously gained several footholds on the islands and coastline on the fringes of Macedonia in order to exploit the region’s rich natural resources, and these settlements succumbed to the Macedonians early in this extraordinary tale of conquests. After Alexander, Macedonian kings based at Pella maintained a flourishing kingdom until they were toppled by the legions in the second century bc, when the whole area became part of the Roman Empire.

Athenian snobbishness notwithstanding, the Macedonians embraced Greek culture (Euripides and Aristotle, among others, graced the royal court). The treasures from the Royal Tombs at Vergina and elsewhere are among the most accomplished and beautiful artefacts to have survived from the ancient world.

Macedonia flourished under the Pax Romana, with important centres at Philippi and Thessalonica (Salonica). The latter went on to become a cultural and religious bastion of the medieval Byzantine empire, second only to Constantinople itself.