Philip II of Macedon was a man of strength and heralded a new age of of Macedonian rule. Philip descended from the Argead dynasty (also called the Temenid dynasty) which was the ruling dynasty of the Macedonians from c. 700 BC. In fact, the last of the Argead's was Alexander the Great, the son of Philip II. The Argead traced their origins back to Argos, of Peloponnese in Southern Greece.

Philip was a master in terms of military strength. His most enduring reform was the introduction of the military prowess of the Macedonian phalanx. This was a classical military tactic of soldiers standing in close proximity to one another, in other words, a mass formation with weaponry. Philip added the use of a sarissa, a 6 metre pike that was employed at the front of this formation. The phalanx was 16 files of 16 men each totaling 256 soldiers. Philip, and later his son Alexander, used this as a tool for holding the enemy and then employed heavy cavalry to break through.