Philip II

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After a short period of time , he killed his nephew Amyntas III and claimed himself as king in 359BC .
When aging 17 years , he fell in captivity for 3 years in the polis of Thebes as a prisoner of war . During his stay in Thebes , he noted that the Greeks were more advanced than his own people . One of his dreams was to make Macedonia as advanced as Hellas , so he studied the new military technique which was called phalanxes . After being freed , he became the king of Macedonia . He decided to build a strong army and to train the army in the phalanx technique . The main dream of Philip II was to unite the Greek polises (cities) under his leadership , the leadership of Macedonia to fight the Persians who were their common enemy . In order to achieve his dream he followed 3 main means:-
1-The political mean: he sent messengers to all the Greek polises calling on them to join him in the wars against Persia , but only very few cities accepted his offer .
2-The bribery mean: By using this means , a large number of cities joined Macedonia .
3-The military mean: he declared war against the polis which refused to join Macedonia by the first 2 means and he succeeded in defeating them by force , and finally he succeeded in uniting the Greek cities under the leadership of Macedonia .
He prepared a joint army of Greeks and Macedonians that was ready to start to fight the Persians . Before his departure , he decided that his daughter should marry , and during her wedding , one of his army officers killed him for a personal dispute in 336BC .
Philip II was married to a Greek princess (called Olympus) who was rough-natured , so they were not on good terms . She gave him children among whom was Alexander III . With the advance of time , their relationship deteriorated and the children sided with their mother . So the relationship between Alexander and Philip II (his father) was tense .
However , Philip II provided his son , Alexander III with the best military training and brought Aristotle to be his personal tutor as he provided his son with the best education . When the relationship between them became very bad , Philip exiled some of Alexander's friends outside Macedonia believing that they were the reason for this bad relationship . Among these friends was Ptolemy , son of Lagos , who was brought up with Alexander in the royal palace and was 10 years older than him . When Alexander III became the king of Macedonia , he asked his friend Ptolemy to return back to Macedonia and appointed him as an officer in the army .
Ptolemy , son of Lagos , proved his ability and became one of the 7 top generals of the army who were the bodyguards of Alexander III .