Philip II of Macedon quite easily assimilates the Odrysian kingdom in Thrace, which had in about 360 split into three polities.

According to legend, when Philip attacks the Getae, they send out against him priests robed in white and playing lyres.

He makes another and final move against Thrace in 342, removing the first local recalcitrant, Cersobleptes.

From the economic as well as the political point of view, subduing the Thracian rulers has been well worth the effort: …

Philip captures the Thracian settlement of Eumolpias, situated on approximately four hundred-feet-high (one hundred and twenty-meters) cliffs above the Maritsa River, in 342 and renames the city Philippopolis (present Plovdiv, in south central Bulgaria, about eighty-five miles (one hundred and forty kilometers) southeast of Sofia).

Aristotle, a graduate of the Academy's program to train young men for a political career and to provide advice to rulers, had joined the court of Hermias of Atarneus, tyrant of Assus in Ionia, following Plato's death in 347 BCE.

Xenocrates, a friend and classmate of Aristotle's, has accompanied Aristotle to Asia Minor, where Aristotle has established a Platonic school, but the Persians capture and kill Hermias in 342 BCE, necessitating his return to Greece.

Philip begins the series of campaigns in Thrace in 342 BCE that will enable him to annex great parts of it as a province within two years , and finally to demonstrate his power against the Scythians settled on the southern banks of the Danube Delta.

Philip meanwhile reasserts his suzerainty over the neighboring Illyrians and tightens his grip on Thessaly; dividing the state into tetrarchie—namely, Thessaliotis, Hestiaeotis, Pelasgiotis, and Phthiotis. (These may, however, have constituted a revival of a division of earlier origin.)

The term “tetrarch” (Greek: “ruler of a quarter” [of a region or province]) is first used to denote the governors of these provinces.

The Samnites, Oscan-speaking agriculturists of the Apennine Mountains state of Samnium in southern Italy (present Abruzzi) are probable descendants of the Sabines.

They begin to expand their territory in the fourth century in warlike manner, forming a confederation of four tribes—the Caraceni, Caudini, Hirpini, and Pentri—in opposition to Rome.

In response to a request by Capua, a town in the Latin League, for aid against the Samnites, Rome sends troops in 343.

Although the Romans score a minor victory at Mount Gaurus in 342, mutinies and heavy losses undercut the effectiveness of Roman support.

An Athenian general incurs Philip's wrath in 341 BCE for operating too near one of his towns in the Chersonese.

Philip demands his recall, but Demosthenes replies in a speech, On the Chersonese, that the motive behind the Macedonian's “scheming and contriving” is to weaken the Athenians' will to oppose Philip's conquests.

“Philip is at war with us,” he declares, “and has broken the peace.” Shortly afterward, Demosthenes delivers his Third Philippic, perhaps the most successful single speech in his long campaign against Philip.

As a result, Demosthenes becomes controller of the navy and can thus carry out the naval reforms he had proposed in 354 BCE.

In addition, a grand alliance is formed against Philip, including Byzantium and former enemies of Athens, such as Thebes.

Indecisive warfare follows, with Athens strong at sea but Philip nearly irresistible on land.

The Macedonian army is well organized under a single brilliant commander who uses cavalry in coordination with highly disciplined infantry, while the Greek alliance depends upon what is essentially a group of citizens' militia.

Phocion again acquits himself brilliantly in the Athenians' second campaign against the Macedonians and their allies at Euboea in 341 BCE.

Sicyon is celebrated during the fourth century BCE for its school of painters and sculptors, including the master sculptor Lysippus.

Head of the school at Argos and Sicyon in the time of Philip of Macedon, he gains fame for the new and slender proportions of his figures and for their lifelike naturalism.

Originally a worker in bronze, he had taught himself the art of sculpture by studying nature and the Doryphorus (Spearbearer) of Polykleitos, whose canon of ideal male proportions he modifies by creating a smaller head and slimmer body that increases his figures' apparent height.

Lysippus' portraits of Philip's son Alexander are many; he sculpts Alexander from boyhood onward, and Alexander will have no other sculptor portray him.

Among the works attributed to him are the so-called Horses of Saint Mark, ...

According to Pliny, he produced more than fifteen hundred works, all of them in bronze.

Commentators noted his grace and elegance, and the symmetria or coherent balance of his figures, which were leaner than the ideal represented by Polykleitos and with proportionately smaller heads, giving them the impression of greater height.

He was famous for his attention to the details of eyelids and toenails.

His pupil, Chares of Lindos, will construct the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

As this statue does not exist today, debate continues as to whether its sections were cast in bronze or hammered of sheet bronze.