Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors

In the mid 4th century BC, Greece experienced a seismic convulsion whose shockwaves would be felt as far away as India, when an energetic young commander took the throne of Macedon, led his army to a string of victories, and consolidated a new empire. His identity? Not Alexander (though his career, too, would be stratospheric) but his father, Philip, who, learning his military trade as a hostage in Thebes, turned his newly equipped phalanxes on hostile local tribes and kingdoms before making himself hegemon of mainland Greece. Yet there was more to Philip than brute force. A brilliant diplomat and canny politician, he united his subjects behind a common cause – a Panhellenic campaig