In 338 BC Philip II of Macedon established Macedonian rule over Greece; he was succeeded in 336 by his son Alexander the Great, whose conquests in the twelve years that followed reached as far as the Russian steppes, Afghanistan, and the Punjab, and created the Hellenistic world.

The study of Macedonia is now a growing point in ancient history. The first ever history of ancient Macedonia has now been completed in three volumes by N. G. L. Hammond, helped by G. T. Griffith and F. W. Walbank. On the basis of that work Professor Hammond now provides in one volume a history of the Macedonian state and its institutions both in Europe and in the Hellenistic kingdoms in Asia and Egypt, on which much new light has been shed by epigraphic and archaeological discoveries. Those institutions have had a profound influence on subsequent history. Full references are given to the ancient sources of information and to archaeological, numismatic, and epigraphic articles.