It was seen as one of the principal Hellenistic fighting forces until its ultimate defeat at Roman hands at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC.

Starting as just a mere handful of mercenary troops under Antigonus Gonatas in the 270s BC, the Antigonid army eventually became the dominant force in Hellenistic Greece, fighting campaigns against Epirus, the Achaean League, Sparta, Athens, Rhodes and Pergamon, not to mention the numerous Thracian and Celtic tribes that threatened Macedon from the north.

[4] Thanks to contemporary inscriptions from Amphipolis and Greia dated 218 and 181 respectively, historians have been able to partially piece together the organization of the Antigonid army under Philip V, such as its command by tetrarchai officers assisted by grammateis (i.e. secretaries or clerks).

Due to the financial strains that plagued the kingdom, Gonatas primarily hired Galatian and Celtic mercenaries, as they were much cheaper than Greeks.

[10] Antigonus Gonatas ruled directly over the original Macedonian kingdom, however he put the newly acquired territory under the control of a strategoi with military powers.

Demetrius II, father of the future Philip V of Macedon, only ruled for 10 years, but in his reign he fought many campaigns against the northern Thracian, Celtic and Illyrian tribes as well as an Achaean-Aetolian alliance.

A resurgent Sparta under Cleomenes III led to war in the Peloponnese and the Achaean League under Aratus of Sicyon turned to Antigonus Doson for help.

Wars against the Aetolia, Sparta and Elis, as well as a Dardanian invasion kept Philip busy in the years 220-217 BC and gave him a great deal of military experience.

[12] The first war ended in a stalemate and the Peace of Phoinike, which allowed Philip to keep his newly acquired land from his campaigns against the Aetolians, Rome's ally.

[14] By 199 BC, the Romans had inflicted some minor defeats on the Macedonians and had also recruited the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues to their side.

[16] Using a flanking maneuver, Flaminius managed to dislodge Philip and chase him into Thessaly, where in 197 BC the two sides met at the Battle of Cynoscephalae.

The Thracians moved to the cities and towns were people directly responsible to Philip as king and also a useful force to watch over suspect citizens.

[21] In fact, when Aemilius Paullus, the Roman commander who defeated Perseus at Pydna in 168 BC, took the Antigonid royal treasury, he found 6,000 talents left.

[24][25][26] After this defeat, the Antigonid kingdom was quickly disbanded, with Perseus becoming a Roman prisoner and Macedonia being split up into several autonomous republics.

[29][30] The premier guard infantry unit of the regular army, they are not to be confused with the skirmisher troops of the same name, denoted by their shield, the pelte.

[28] However, we must remember that Philip II had a similar proportion of cavalry to infantry and the reasoning for the higher amounts of mounted forces in Alexander's campaigns was due to the vast distance of territory needed to be travelled, especially in Persia.

However, the use of Thessalian cavalry decreased in 196 BC, when the Romans, triumphant after Cynoscephalae, gave parts of Macedonian Thessaly to their allies, the Aetolians.

[55] Antigonus III Doson used the Macedonian navy to invade Caria, while Philip V allegedly sent two-hundred ships, some of them captured from the Ptolemies, to fight in the (unsuccessful) Battle of Chios in 201 BC.

[57][50] Andriscus quickly defeated the forces of the several autonomous Macedonian republics in battle beyond the Strymon in the lands of the Odomanti tribe.

Andriscus, having established himself as the new king of Macedon, under the name Philip VI, decisively defeated a Roman army under Publius Juventius.

Having defeated the Romans, Andriscus invaded Thessaly in 148 BC, where he suffered a setback in battle against the Achaean League, commanded by Scipio Nasica.

A Roman army under Quintus Caecilius Metellus then invaded Macedon and defeated Andriscus at the Second Battle of Pydna.

The Macedonian aristocratic cavalry joined Telestes, as the richer classes supported the Romans more than they did Andriscus, and any hope of success was dead.