Figure 64 Monumental marble lion from Amphipolis; height of lion 5.3 m, late fourth century BC. Source:
Fotolia / Author: vkara.
Subsequently, some of the Macedonian kings went out of their way to present their court as a fully
Hellenized center of culture that patronized Greek artists and poets, including the Athenian Euripides,
whose last years were spent at the Macedonian court. By the time Philip became king, in 359 BC, he was
personally conversant with affairs in Greece, having earlier spent two years living in Thebes. While
there, Philip learned a great deal about strategy and tactics, since Thebes was the leading military power
in Greece at the time. The previous decades had seen Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, alone or in varying
combinations, assert themselves militarily, and in 371 BC the Thebans soundly defeated the Spartans at
the battle of Leuctra, establishing themselves as the dominant force in Greece and initiating a steady and
permanent decline in Sparta’s military power. Philip put into practice what he had learned from his stay in
Thebes when he ascended the Macedonian throne. He reorganized the Macedonian army and fitted it out
with a new type of equipment, imposing discipline on his troops and training them in a new style of
warfare. The new equipment included a formidable spear more than 5 meters in length, and the new style
of warfare involved a much more extensive and effective use of cavalry than Greek hoplites had been
accustomed to facing. Philip was immediately successful in defending Macedonian territory against
attacks by his neighbors to the north, and for the next twenty years his influence over the poleis in central
Greece expanded until the last resistance to Macedonian power was eliminated in 338 BC. In that year,
Philip and the Macedonians, along with a number of Greek allies, were victorious in the decisive battle
of Chaeronea against the forces of Athens and Thebes. In the battle, the cavalry on the left wing of the