The rise of Macedon, including its conquest and political consolidation of most of Classical Greece during his reign, was achieved by his reformation of the army (the establishment of the Macedonian phalanx that proved critical in securing victories on the battlefield), his extensive use of siege engines, and his use of effective diplomacy and marriage alliances.

However, his assassination by a royal bodyguard, Pausanias of Orestis, led to the immediate succession of his son Alexander, who would go on to invade the Achaemenid Empire in his father's stead.

The Paeonians and the Thracians had sacked and invaded the eastern regions of Macedonia, while the Athenians had landed at Methoni on the coast with a contingent under the Macedonian pretender Argaeus II.

In addition to these changes, Philip created the Macedonian phalanx, an infantry formation that consisted of soldiers all armed with a sarissa.

The Athenians had been unable to conquer Amphipolis, which commanded the gold mines of Mount Pangaion, so Philip reached an agreement with Athens to lease the city to them after his conquest, in exchange for Pydna (which was lost by Macedon in 363 BC).

At the request of the Thessalian League, Philip and his army traveled to Thessaly in order to capture Pagasae, resulting in an alliance with Thebes.

Philip returned to Thessaly the next summer, this time with an army of 20,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, and the additional support of the Thessalian League's forces.

[23] Philip did not attempt to advance into Central Greece because the Athenians, unable to arrive in time to defend Pagasae, had occupied Thermopylae.

He was active in completing the subjugation of the Balkan hill-country to the west and north, and in reducing the Greek cities of the coast as far as the Hebrus.

[22] In 348 BC, Philip started the siege of Olynthus, which, apart from its strategic position, housed his half-brothers, Arrhidaeus and Menelaus, pretenders to the Macedonian throne.

In 347 BC, Philip advanced to the conquest of the eastern districts about Hebrus, and compelled the submission of the Thracian prince Cersobleptes.

[27] In 342 BC, Philip led a military expedition north against the Scythians, conquering the Thracian fortified settlement Eumolpia to give it his name, Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv).

[22] He successfully reasserted his authority in the Aegean by defeating an alliance of Thebans and Athenians at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, and in the same year, destroyed Amfissa because the residents had illegally cultivated part of the Crisaian plain which belonged to Delphi.

These decisive victories led to Philip being recognized as the military leader of the League of Corinth, a Greek confederation allied against the Persian Empire, in 338/7 BC.

[32][35] In 336 BC, Philip II sent Parmenion, with Amyntas, Andromenes and Attalus, and an army of 10,000 men into Asia Minor to make preparations for an invasion to free the Greeks living on the western coast and islands from Achaemenid rule.

The Greek cities on the western coast of Anatolia revolted until the news arrived that Philip had been assassinated and had been succeeded as king by his young son Alexander.

The Macedonians were demoralized by Philip's death and were subsequently defeated near Magnesia by the Achaemenids under the command of the mercenary Memnon of Rhodes.

While the king was entering into the town's theatre, he was unprotected in order to appear approachable to the Greek diplomats and dignitaries who were present at that time.

After Philip was killed, the assassin immediately tried to escape and reach his getaway associates, who were waiting for him with horses at the entrance to Aegae.

[56] When Pausanias complained to Philip, the king felt unable to chastise Attalus, as he was about to send him to Asia with Parmenion to establish a bridgehead for an invasion he was planning.

Pausanias then seems to have redirected his desire for revenge towards the man who had failed to avenge his damaged honour, and accordingly to plan to kill Philip.

What seems to have been recorded, rather, are simply suspicions that were naturally directed towards the chief beneficiaries of the assassination; however, their actions in response to the murder are hardly evidence of their guilt with respect to the crime itself, regardless of how sympathetic they might have seemed afterward.

[58] Scholar Daniel Ogden has noted that if there was a sexual side to the murder, "then it can be contextualized in this regard against known homosexual relationships in and around the Macedonian court" and that according to Aristotle, the regicide of Archelaus I of Macedon was by his former eromenoi, Crateuas and Hellenocrates of Larissa.

[67] The Greek Ministry of Culture replied that this claim was baseless, and that the archaeological evidence shows that the ankylotic knee belongs to another body which was thrown or put into Tomb I after this had been looted, and probably between 276/5 and 250 BC.

[69] The heroon at Vergina in Macedonia (the ancient city of Aegae – Αἰγαί) is thought to have been dedicated to the worship of the family of Alexander the Great and may have housed the cult statue of Philip.

Though the Macedonians did not consider Philip a god, he did receive other forms of recognition from the Greeks, e.g. at Eresos (altar to Zeus Philippeios), Ephesos (his statue was placed in the temple of Artemis), and at Olympia, where the Philippeion was built.