of Eropus, of the royal blood of Macedon, and had the same measure which Archelaus had measured to his pupil ; for Æropus murdered him, and usurped the kingdom, which he held some six years: the same who denied-passage to Agesilaus king of Sparta, who desired after his return from the Asian expedition to pass by the way of Macedon into Greece.

This usurper left three sons, Pausanias, Argæus, and Alexander. Pausanias succeeded his father Æropus, and having reigned one year, he was driven out by Amyntas the son of Philip, the son of the first Perdiccas, the son of Alexander the Rich; which Philip was then preserved, when Archelaus the bastard slew his brother Perdiccas, his uncle Alcetas, and his son Alexander. This Amyntas reigned (though very unquietly) four and twenty years; for he was not only infested by Pausanias, assisted by the Thracians, and by his brother Argæus; encouraged by the Illyrians; and by the said Argæus, for two years dispossessed of Macedon; but on the other side, the Olynthians, his neighbours near the Egean sea, made themselves for a while masters of Pella, the chief city of Macedon.

Amyntas the second had by his wife Eurydice the Illyrian three sons; Alexander the second, Perdiccas the third, and Philip the second, father of Alexander the Great; and one daughter called Euryone, or Exione: he had also by his second wife Gygea, three sons, Archelaus, Argæus, and Menelaus, afterward slain by their brother Philip. He had more by a concubine, Ptolemy, surnamed Alorites, of the city Alorus, wherein he was born.

Alexander the second reigned not much above one year, in which time he was invaded by Pausanias, the son of Eropus, but defended by Iphicrates the Athenian, while he was at that time about Amphipolis. He was also constrained (for the payment of a great sum of money) to leave his youngest brother Philip in hostage with the Illyrians, who had subjected his father Amyntas to the payment of tribute. After this, Alexander, being invited by the Aleuadæ against Diod. Polyæn. Plut. in Demet.

Alexander the tyrant of Pheres in Thessaly, having redeemed his brother Philip, to draw the Thebans to his assistance entered into confederacy with Pelopidas, being at that time in the same country, with whom he also left Philip, with divers other principal persons for the gage of his promises to Pelopidas. But Eurydice his mother falling in love with her son-in-law, who had married her daughter Euryone, or Exione, practised the death of Alexander her son, with a purpose to confer the kingdom on her paramour, which Ptolemy Alorites did put in execution; by means whereof he held Macedon for three years, but was soon after slain by Perdiccas the brother of Alexander. Diodore hath it otherwise of Philip's being made pledge, and saith, that Amyntas his father delivered him for hostage to the Illyrians, by whom he was conveyed to Thebes, there to be kept; others report that Philip (while his father was yet living) was first engaged to the Thebans, and delivered for hostage a second time by Alexander his brother.

Perdiccas the third, after he had slain Alorites his base brother, governed Macedon five years, and was then slain in a battle against the Illyrians, according to Diodorus; but m Justin affirmeth, that he perished by the practice of Eurydice his mother, as Alexander did.

SECT. II.

The beginning of Philip's reign, and how he delivered Macedon from the troubles wherein he found it entangled.

PHILIP the second, the youngest son of Amyntas by Eurydice, having been instructed in all knowledge requisite unto the government of a kingdom in that excellent education which he had under Epaminondas, "making an escape from Thebes, returned into Macedon in the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, which was after the building of Rome three hundred fourscore and thirteen years; and finding the many enemies and dangers wherewith the kingdom was environed, he took on him, not as king, (for m Just. 1. 7.

1 Diod. 1. 15. et 16.

"Diod. 1. 16.

Perdiccas left a son, though but an infant,) but as the protector of his nephew, and commander of the men of war. Yet his fruitful ambition soon overgrew his modesty, and he was easily persuaded by the people to accept both the title of king, and withal the absolute rule of the kingdom. And to say the truth, the necessity of the state of Macedon at that time required a king both prudent and active. For, besides the incursions of the Illyrians and Pannonians, the king of Thrace did set up in opposition Pausanias; the Athenians, Argæus; sons of the late usurper Æropus; each of these labouring to place in Macedon a king of their own election. These heavy burdens when Philip could not well bear, he bought off the weightiest by money, and by fair promises unloaded himself of so many of the rest, as he ran under the remainder happily enough. For, notwithstanding that his brother Perdiccas had his death accompanied with four thousand Macedonians, beside these that were wounded and taken prisoners; and that the Pannonians were destroying all before them in Macedon; and that the Athenians with a fleet by sea, and three thousand soldiers by land under Mantias, did beat upon him on all sides and quarters of his country; yet after he had practised the men of war of Pannonia, and corrupted them with gifts; and had also bought the king of Thrace from Pausanias, he forthwith made head against the Athenians his stiffest enemies; and, for the first, he prevented their recovery of Amphipolis, a city on the frontier of Macedon; and did then pursue Argæus the son of Æropus, set against him by the Athenians, and followed him so hard at the heels in his retreat from Eges, that he forced him to abide the battle; which Argæus lost, having the greatest part of his army slain in the place. Those of the Athenians, and others which remained unbroken, took the advantage of a strong piece of ground at hand, which though they could not long defend, yet avoiding thereby the present fury of the soldiers, they obtained of the vanquishers life and liberty to return into Attica. Whereupon a peace was con

cluded between him and the Athenians for that present, and for this clemency he was greatly renowned and honoured by all the Greeks.

SECT. III.

The good success which Philip had in many enterprises. NOW had Philip leisure to look northward, and to attend the Illyrians and Poonians, his irreconcilable enemies and borderers; both which he invaded with so prosperous success, as he slew Bardillis, king of the Illyrians, with seven thousand of his nation, and thereby recovered all those places which the Illyrians held in Macedon; and withal, upon the death of the king of Pannonia, he pierced that country, and after a main victory obtained, he enforced them to pay him tribute. This was no sooner done, than (without staying to take longer breath) he hasted speedily towards Larissa, upon the river Peneus in Thessaly, of which town he soon made himself master; and thereby he got good footing in that country, whereof he made use in time following. Now although he resolved either to subdue the Thessalians, or to make them his own against all others, because the horsemen of that country were the best and most feared in that part of Europe; yet he thought it most for his safety to close up the entrances out of Thrace, lest, while he invaded Thessaly and Greece towards the south, those ample nations, lying towards the north, should either withdraw him, or overrun Macedon, as in former times. He therefore attempted Amphipolis, seated on the famous river of Strimon, which parteth Thrace from Macedon, and won it. He also recovered Pydna; and (to the north of Amphipolis) the city of Crenides, (sometime Datus,) and called it after his own name Philippi; to the people whereof St. Paul afterward directed one of his Epistles. This place wherein Philippi stood is very rich in mines of gold, out of which, greatly to the advancement of Philip's affairs, he drew yearly a thousand talents, which make six hundred thousand French crowns.

And that he might with the more ease disburden the

Thracian shores of the Athenian garrisons, to which he had given a great blow by the taking in of Amphipolis, he entered into league with his father's malicious enemies the Olynthians, whom the better to fasten unto him, he gave them the city of Pydna with the territory, meaning nothing less than that they should enjoy it, or their own estate, many years.

Now that he might by degrees win ground upon the Greeks, he took the fair occasion to deliver the city of Pheres in Thessaly from the tyranny of Lycophron and Tisiphonus. Who after they had conspired with Thebe the wife of Alexander, who usurped upon the liberty of that state, they themselves (Alexander being murdered) held it also by the same strong hand and oppression that Alexander did, till by the assistance of Philip they were beaten out, and Pheres restored to her former liberty. Which act of Philip did for ever after fasten the Thessalians unto him, and, to his exceeding great advantage, bind them to his

service.

SECT. IV.

Of the Phocian war which first drew Philip into Greece.

ABOUT this time, to wit, in the second year of the hundred and sixth Olympiad, eight years after the battle of Mantinea, and about the eighth year of Artaxerxes Ochus, began that war called Sacred. Now as all occasions concur towards the execution of eternal Providence, and of every great alteration in the world there is some preceding preparation, though not at the first easily discerned; so did this revengeful hatred by the Thebans, Thessalians, and Locrians, conceived against the Phocians, not only teach Philip how he might with half a hand wrest the sword out of their fingers; but the Greeks themselves beating down their own defences to give him an easy passage, and beating themselves to give him victory without peril, left nothing unperformed towards their own slavery, saving the title and imposition. Of this war the Thebans (made overproud by their victory at Leuctres) were the inflamers. For at the council of the Amphictyons, or of the general estates