Philip II

Philip II of Macedon (lived 382—336 BC, reigned 359—336 BC) was the king of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia and the father of Alexander the Great. Philip conquered and consolidated most of Greece through his reformation of the Macedonian army and his use of siege engines, as well as his newly-invented Macedonian Phalanx, a tight square formation of soldiers that moved while surrounded by their shields and spears. He also used diplomacy and marriage alliances to unite the Greek city-states. Philip then formed the League of Corinth, a federation of Greek states for a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, but he was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. His son, Alexander the Great, invaded the Achaemenid Empire instead.