Timotheus, upon his acquittal of a charge of negligence in 373 BCE, had served the king of Persia as a mercenary, and is now back in the service of Athens.

He overruns Samos after a ten-month siege in 366-365 BCE, and installs an Athenian cleruchy on Samos, a capital error.

Timotheus' action can be technically justified: Samos is not a member of the Athenian Confederacy, and Persia had violated the King's Peace by installing its garrison; thus the cleruchy can be seen as a military response to Persian provocation in an area not covered by the rules of the charter of 377 BCE.

Its effect on Greek opinion is damaging nonetheless, and …

…the Thebans quickly try to exploit it.

Timotheus goes on to capture a number of cities in the northern Aegean, but fails in two seaborne attempts to take Amphipolis.

Dionysius II of Syracuse sends help to Sparta, enabling it to recover control over some formerly subject communities in 365, but that is about the limit of his interference in mainland Greek affairs.

Antisthenes, who had been a student and friend of Socrates, considers virtue the highest value in life, since it flows from the knowledge of what is good.

Like Socrates, Antisthenes teaches that happiness is solely dependent on one's own moral virtue, not on the possession of material goods.

Unlike Socrates, Antisthenes advocates harsh and ascetic self-denial, whereas Socrates had urged temperance and self-control.

Born in about 445 BCE, Antisthenes, was the son of Antisthenes, an Athenian; his mother was a Thracian.

He fought in his youth hat Tanagra in 426 BCE, and was a disciple first of Gorgias, and then of Socrates, at whose death he was present.

He never forgave his master's persecutors, and is even said to have been instrumental in procuring their punishment.

He survived the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE, as he is reported to have compared the victory of the Thebans to a set of schoolboys beating their master.

One source tells us that he died at the age of seventy, but he was apparently still alive in 366 BCE, and he must have been nearer to eighty years old around 365 BCE when he dies at Athens.

Iphicrates, like Timotheus, fails in attempts from 367 BCE to 364 BCE to recover Amphipolis.

The Arcadian army, after ravaging Elis in the spring of 364 BCE, marches against the little town Cromnus, in the neighborhood of Megalopolis, and lays siege to the city, in which Archidamus had left a small garrison.

The Arcadians defeat Archidamus's relief force.

The Boeotian league destroys Thebes' Boeotian rival Orchomenus in 364 BCE.

Epaminondas in this year commands a fleet against the Athenian navy and …

…Pelopidas marches against Alexander of Pherae, who, during the past three years, has seemed to renew his attempts to subdue the states of Thessaly, especially Magnesia and Phthiotis, for upon the expiry of the truce in 364 BCE they again apply to Thebes for protection from him.

The Theban army under Pelopidas is said to have been dismayed by an eclipse on July 13, 364, and Pelopidas, leaving the bulk of his army behind, enters Thessaly at the head of three hundred volunteer horsemen and some mercenaries.

At Cynoscephalae (Greek: “Dogs' Heads”), an ancient range of hills in Thessaly, the Thebans defeat Alexander, but Pelopidas is killed.

This is closely followed by another Theban victory under Malcites and Diogiton.

Alexander is now forced to restore the conquered towns to the Thessalians, confine himself to Pherae, join the Boeotian League, and become a dependent ally of Thebes.

The Thebans release the hostage prince Philip in 364 BCE also.

The Macedonian prince during his captivity has received a military and diplomatic education from Epaminondas, become the eromenos of Pelopidas, and lived with Pammenes, an enthusiastic advocate of the Sacred Band of Thebes.

The skills and techniques thus acquired are soon to prove valuable.

Amyntas, after a turbulent five-year interval of two brief reigns, those of Alexander II and Ptolemy, and one intervention by a pretender, Pausanias, had in 365 BCE been succeeded by Perdiccas, the second of his sons by Eurydice.

When Philip returns to Macedonia, his brother Perdiccas soon finds him ready for a command.

The fourth century Macedonian kings make grants of land in exchange for military service (a system hinted at by literary sources and illustrated by inscriptions).

Given the size and fertility of the areas controlled by the Macedonian kings, there is huge potential for military achievement, provided Macedon's chronic enemies and invaders can be appeased or crushed.