Macedon · 359-336 BC

Philip II: the king who united Greece

Alexander's father inherited a weak kingdom on the edge of the Greek world and in twenty years made it master of Greece. Students study his new army with its long pikes, follow the money from the gold mines, and visit the field of Chaeronea where the free city-states lost.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, 370 BC to 338 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Alexander's father inherited a weak kingdom on the edge of the Greek world and in twenty years made it master of Greece. Students study his new army with its long pikes, follow the money from the gold mines, and visit the field of Chaeronea where the free city-states lost.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Macedon, Pella, Amphipolis and Chaeronea on the map.
  • Explain two reasons Philip's army beat the Greek city-states: the sarissa phalanx and the gold of Mount Pangaion.
  • Describe the League of Corinth and what Philip planned to do next.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

370 BC

A kingdom on the edge

Open the map in 370 BC on Macedon, north of Greece. Turn on the Cities layer: no big city shows here yet. Many Greeks did not count the Macedonians as proper Greeks. Note how the map's borders jump: the next snapshot it can show is Alexander's empire of 323 BC. Everything between is Philip's work.

Open this view on the map
b

356 BC

Gold and pikes

Stay around 356 BC and find Amphipolis, east of the Chalcidice peninsula. Philip took it in 357 BC and the gold mines of Mount Pangaion behind it, said to yield 1,000 talents a year. With that money he paid a full-time army armed with the sarissa, a pike up to 6 m long.

Open this view on the map
c

338 BC

Chaeronea

Jump to 338 BC and turn on Historical Events (Battles). Find "Battle of Chaeronea". Here Philip and the 18-year-old Alexander defeated Athens and Thebes. The next year the Greek cities joined his League of Corinth, and he announced a war on Persia. Trace the route from Pella to Chaeronea.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Philip spent three years as a hostage in Thebes as a boy and watched the best army in Greece. What can a prisoner learn that a prince at home cannot?
  2. The Macedonian phalanx held pikes so long that the first five rows of points stuck out in front. Why was it almost unbeatable from the front, and what was its weakness?
  3. The Athenian speaker Demosthenes warned for years that Philip would swallow Greece, but Athens acted late. Why do states often wait too long?
  4. After Chaeronea Philip was generous to Athens but harsh to Thebes. What was he trying to achieve with each?
  5. Philip was murdered in 336 BC at his daughter's wedding by one of his own bodyguards. Historians still argue over who was behind it. What makes a political murder so hard to solve, even 2,000 years later?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Alexander the Great and find the ruling about the revolt of Thebes in 335 BC. Then ask: Philip had spared Thebes's existence after Chaeronea, but Alexander destroyed the city. Which decision shows the better king?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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