title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk most recognizably features anachronistic technologies or retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them — distinguishing it from Neo-Victorianism — and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technologies may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Other examples of steampunk contain alternative-history-style presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk may also incorporate additional elements from the genres of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, or other branches of speculative fiction, making it often a hybrid genre. As a form of speculative fiction, it explores alternative futures or pasts but can also address real-world social issues. The first known appearance of the term "steampunk" was in 1987, though it now retroactively refers to many works of fiction created as far back as the 1950s or earlier A popular subgenre is Japanese steampunk, consisting of steampunk-themed manga and anime, with steampunk elements having appeared in mainstream manga since the 1940s.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk also refers to any of the artistic styles, clothing fashions, or subcultures that have developed from the aesthetics of steampunk fiction, Victorian-era fiction, art nouveau design, and films from the mid-20th century. Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual artisans into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk is influenced by and often adopts the style of the 19th-century scientific romances of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and Edward S. Ellis's "The Steam Man of the Prairies". Several more modern works of art and fiction significant to the development of the genre were produced before the genre had a name. "Titus Alone" (1959), by Mervyn Peake, is widely regarded by scholars as the first novel in the genre proper, while others point to Michael Moorcock's 1971 novel "The Warlord of the Air", which was heavily influenced by Peake's work. The film "Brazil" (1985) was an early cinematic influence, although it can also be considered a precursor to the steampunk offshoot dieselpunk. "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" was an early (1970s) comic version of the Moorcock-style mover between timestreams.


title: Steampunk

text: In fine art, Remedios Varo's paintings combine elements of Victorian dress, fantasy, and technofantasy imagery. In television, one of the earliest manifestations of the steampunk ethos in the mainstream media was the CBS television series "The Wild Wild West" (1965–69), which inspired the later film.


title: Steampunk

text: Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the term "steampunk" originated largely in the 1980s as a tongue-in-cheek variant of "cyberpunk". It was coined by science fiction author K. W. Jeter, who was trying to find a general term for works by Tim Powers ("The Anubis Gates", 1983), James Blaylock ("Homunculus", 1986), and himself ("Morlock Night", 1979, and "Infernal Devices", 1987) — all of which took place in a 19th-century (usually Victorian) setting and imitated conventions of such actual Victorian speculative fiction as H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine". In a letter to science fiction magazine "Locus", printed in the April 1987 issue, Jeter wrote:


title: Steampunk

text: While Jeter's "Morlock Night" and "Infernal Devices", Powers' "The Anubis Gates", and Blaylock's "Lord Kelvin's Machine" were the first novels to which Jeter's neologism would be applied, the three authors gave the term little thought at the time. They were far from the first modern science fiction writers to speculate on the development of steam-based technology or alternative histories. Keith Laumer's "Worlds of the Imperium" (1962) and Ronald W. Clark's "Queen Victoria's Bomb" (1967) apply modern speculation to past-age technology and society. Michael Moorcock's "Warlord of the Air" (1971) is another early example. Harry Harrison's novel "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" (1973) portrays Britain in an alternative 1973, full of atomic locomotives, coal-powered flying boats, ornate submarines, and Victorian dialogue. "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" (mid-1970s) was one of the first steampunk comics. In February 1980, Richard A. Lupoff and Steve Stiles published the first "chapter" of their 10-part comic strip "The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer". In 2004, one anonymous author described steampunk as "Colonizing the Past so we can dream the future."


title: Steampunk

text: The first use of the word "steampunk" in a title was in Paul Di Filippo's 1995 "Steampunk Trilogy", consisting of three short novels: "Victoria", "Hottentots", and "Walt and Emily", which, respectively, imagine the replacement of Queen Victoria by a human/newt clone, an invasion of Massachusetts by Lovecraftian monsters, and a love affair between Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.


title: Steampunk

text: Japanese steampunk consists of steampunk manga comics and anime productions from Japan. Steampunk elements have consistently appeared in mainstream manga since the 1940s, dating back to Osamu Tezuka's epic science-fiction trilogy consisting of "Lost World" (1948), "Metropolis" (1949) and "Nextworld" (1951). The steampunk elements found in manga eventually made their way into mainstream anime productions starting in the 1970s, including television shows such as Leiji Matsumoto's "Space Battleship Yamato" (1974) and the 1979 anime adaptation of Riyoko Ikeda's manga "Rose of Versailles" (1972). Influenced by 19th-century European authors such as Jules Verne, steampunk anime and manga arose from a Japanese fascination with an imaginary fantastical version of old Industrial Europe, linked to a phenomenon called "akogare no Pari" ("the Paris of our dreams"), comparable to the West's fascination with an "exotic" East.


title: Steampunk

text: The most influential steampunk animator was Hayao Miyazaki, who was creating steampunk anime since the 1970s, starting with the television show "Future Boy Conan" (1978). His manga "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" (1982) and its 1984 anime film adaptation also contained steampunk elements. Miyazaki's most influential steampunk production was the Studio Ghibli anime film "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" (1986), which became a major milestone in the genre and has been described by "The Steampunk Bible" as "one of the first modern steampunk classics." Archetypal steampunk elements in "Laputa" include airships, air pirates, steam-powered robots, and a view of steam power as a limitless but potentially dangerous source of power.


title: Steampunk

text: The success of "Laputa" inspired Hideaki Anno and Studio Gainax to create their first hit production, "" (1990), a steampunk anime show which loosely adapts elements from Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", with Captain Nemo making an appearance. Based on a concept by Miyazaki, "Nadia" was influential on later steampunk anime such as Katsuhiro Otomo's anime film "Steamboy" (2004). Disney's animated steampunk film "" (2001) was influenced by anime, particularly Miyazaki's works and possibly "Nadia". Other popular Japanese steampunk works include Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli anime films "Porco Rosso" (1992) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004), Sega's video game and anime franchise "Sakura Wars" (1996) which is set in a steampunk version of Meiji/Taishō era Japan, and Square Enix's manga and anime franchise "Fullmetal Alchemist" (2001).


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk used to be confused with retrofuturism. Indeed, both sensibilities recall "the older but still modern eras in which technological change seemed to anticipate a better world, one remembered as relatively innocent of industrial decline." For some scholars, retrofuturism is considered a strand of steampunk, one that looks at alternatives to historical imagination and usually created with the same kinds of social protagonists and written for the same type of audiences.


title: Steampunk

text: One of steampunk's most significant contributions is the way in which it mixes digital media with traditional handmade art forms. As scholars Rachel Bowser and Brian Croxall put it, "the tinkering and tinker-able technologies within steampunk invite us to roll up our sleeves and get to work re-shaping our contemporary world." In this respect, steampunk bears more in common with DIY craft and making.


title: Steampunk

text: Many of the visualisations of steampunk have their origins with, among others, Walt Disney's film "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954), including the design of the story's submarine the "Nautilus", its interiors, and the crew's underwater gear; and George Pal's film "The Time Machine" (1960), especially the design of the time machine itself. This theme is also carried over to Six Flags Magic Mountain and Disney parks, in the themed area the "Screampunk District" at Six Flags Magic Mountain and in the designs of The Mysterious Island section of Tokyo DisneySea theme park and Disneyland Paris' Discoveryland area.


title: Steampunk

text: Aspects of steampunk design emphasise a balance between form and function. In this it is like the Arts and Crafts Movement. But John Ruskin, William Morris, and the other reformers in the late nineteenth century rejected machines and industrial production. On the other hand, steampunk enthusiasts present a "non-luddite critique of technology".


title: Steampunk

text: Various modern utilitarian objects have been modified by enthusiasts into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style. Examples include computer keyboards and electric guitars. The goal of such redesigns is to employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass, iron, wood, and leather) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era, rejecting the aesthetic of industrial design.


title: Steampunk

text: In addition, an art exhibit called Anachrotechnofuturism held in Seattle from September 12th to October 3rd aimed to imagine how the past can move past the failures of the present and create a more perfect future all within the framing of a steampunk aesthetic.


title: Steampunk

text: In 1994, the Paris Metro station at Arts et Métiers was redesigned by Belgian artist Francois Schuiten in steampunk style, to honor the works of Jules Verne. The station is reminiscent of a submarine, sheathed in brass with giant cogs in the ceiling and portholes that look out onto fanciful scenes.


title: Steampunk

text: The artist group "Kinetic Steam Works" brought a working steam engine to the Burning Man festival in 2006 and 2007. The group's founding member, Sean Orlando, created a Steampunk Tree House (in association with a group of people who would later form the "Five Ton Crane Arts Group") that has been displayed at a number of festivals. The Steampunk Tree House is now permanently installed at the Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware.


title: Steampunk

text: The Neverwas Haul is a three-story, self-propelled mobile art vehicle built to resemble a Victorian house on wheels. Designed by Shannon O’Hare, it was built by volunteers in 2006 and presented at the Burning Man festival from 2006 through 2015. When fully built, the Haul propelled itself at a top speed of 5 miles per hour and required a crew of ten people to operate safely. Currently, the Neverwas Haul makes her home at Obtainium Works, an "art car factory" in Vallejo, CA owned by O’Hare and home to several other self-styled "contraptionists".


title: Steampunk

text: In May–June 2008, multimedia artist and sculptor Paul St George exhibited outdoor interactive video installations linking London and Brooklyn, New York, in a Victorian era-styled telectroscope. Utilizing this device, New York promoter Evelyn Kriete organised a transatlantic wave between steampunk enthusiasts from both cities, prior to White Mischief's "Around the World in 80 Days" steampunk-themed event.


title: Steampunk

text: In 2009, for Questacon, artist Tim Wetherell created a large wall piece that represented the concept of the clockwork universe. This steel artwork contains moving gears, a working clock, and a movie of the moon's terminator in action. The 3D moon movie was created by Antony Williams.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk became a common descriptor for homemade objects sold on the craft network Etsy between 2009 and 2011, though many of the objects and fashions bear little resemblance to earlier established descriptions of steampunk. Thus the craft network may not strike observers as "sufficiently steampunk" to warrant its use of the term. Comedian April Winchell, author of the book "Regretsy: Where DIY meets WTF", cataloged some of the most egregious and humorous examples on her website "Regretsy". The blog was popular among steampunks and even inspired a music video that went viral in the community and was acclaimed by steampunk "notables".


title: Steampunk

text: From October 2009 through February 2010, the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, hosted the first major exhibition of steampunk art objects, curated and developed by New York artist and designer Art Donovan, who also exhibited his own "electro-futuristic" lighting sculptures, and presented by Dr. Jim Bennett, museum director. From redesigned practical items to fantastical contraptions, this exhibition showcased the work of eighteen steampunk artists from around the globe. The exhibit proved to be the most successful and highly attended in the museum's history and attracted more than eighty thousand visitors. The event was detailed in the official artist's journal "The Art of Steampunk", by curator Donovan.


title: Steampunk

text: In November 2010, The Libratory Steampunk Art Gallery was opened by Damien McNamara in Oamaru, New Zealand. Created from papier-mâché to resemble a large cave and filled with industrial equipment from yesteryear, rayguns, and general steampunk quirks, its purpose is to provide a place for steampunkers in the region to display artwork for sale all year long. A year later, a more permanent gallery, Steampunk HQ, was opened in the former Meeks Grain Elevator Building across the road from The Woolstore, and has since become a notable tourist attraction for Oamaru.


title: Steampunk

text: In 2012, the "Mobilis in Mobili: An Exhibition of Steampunk Art and Appliance" made its debut. Originally located at New York City's Wooster Street Social Club (itself the subject of the television series "NY Ink"), the exhibit featured working steampunk tattoo systems designed by Bruce Rosenbaum, of ModVic and owner of the Steampunk House, Joey "Dr. Grymm" Marsocci, and Christopher Conte. with different approaches. "[B]icycles, cell phones, guitars, timepieces and entertainment systems" rounded out the display. The opening night exhibition featured a live performance by steampunk band Frenchy and the Punk.


title: Steampunk

text: The stills at The Oxford Artisan Distillery are nicknamed "Nautilus" and "Nemo", named after the submarine and its captain in the Jules Verne 1870 science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas". They were built in copper by South Devon Railway Engineering using a steampunk style.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk fashion has no set guidelines but tends to synthesize modern styles with influences from the Victorian era. Such influences may include bustles, corsets, gowns, and petticoats; suits with waistcoats, coats, top hats and bowler hats (themselves originating in 1850 England), tailcoats and spats; or military-inspired garments. Steampunk-influenced outfits are usually accented with several technological and "period" accessories: timepieces, parasols, flying/driving goggles, and ray guns. Modern accessories like cell phones or music players can be found in steampunk outfits, after being modified to give them the appearance of Victorian-era objects. Post-apocalyptic elements, such as gas masks, ragged clothing, and tribal motifs, can also be included. Aspects of steampunk fashion have been anticipated by mainstream high fashion, the Lolita and aristocrat styles, neo-Victorianism, and the Romantic Goth subculture.


title: Steampunk

text: In 2005, Kate Lambert, known as "Kato", founded the first steampunk clothing company, "Steampunk Couture", mixing Victorian and post-apocalyptic influences. In 2013, IBM predicted, based on an analysis of more than a half million public posts on message boards, blogs, social media sites, and news sources, "that 'steampunk,' a subgenre inspired by the clothing, technology and social mores of Victorian society, will be a major trend to bubble up and take hold of the retail industry". Indeed, high fashion lines such as Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Chanel, and Christian Dior had already been introducing steampunk styles on the fashion runways.


title: Steampunk

text: In episode 7 of Lifetime's "Under the Gunn" reality series, contestants were challenged to create avant-garde "steampunk chic" looks. "America's Next Top Model" tackled steampunk fashion in a 2012 episode where models competed in a steampunk-themed photo shoot, posing in front of a steam train while holding a live owl.


title: Steampunk

text: The educational book "Elementary BASIC – Learning to Program Your Computer in BASIC with Sherlock Holmes" (1981), by Henry Singer and Andrew Ledgar, may have been the first fictional work to depict the use of Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine in an adventure story. The instructional book, aimed at young programming students, depicts Holmes using the engine as an aid in his investigations, and lists programs that perform simple data processing tasks required to solve the fictional cases. The book even describes a device that allows the engine to be used remotely, over telegraph lines, as a possible enhancement to Babbage's machine. Companion volumes—"Elementary Pascal – Learning to Program Your Computer in Pascal with Sherlock Holmes" and "From Baker Street to Binary – An Introduction to Computers and Computer Programming with Sherlock Holmes"—were also written.


title: Steampunk

text: In 1988, the first version of the science fiction tabletop role-playing game "" was published. The game is set in an alternative history in which certain now discredited Victorian scientific theories were probable and led to new technologies. Contributing authors included Frank Chadwick, Loren Wiseman, and Marcus Rowland.


title: Steampunk

text: William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's novel "The Difference Engine" (1990) is often credited with bringing about widespread awareness of steampunk. This novel applies the principles of Gibson and Sterling's cyberpunk writings to an alternative Victorian era where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage's proposed steam-powered mechanical computer, which Babbage called a difference engine (a later, more general-purpose version was known as an Analytical Engine), was actually built, and led to the dawn of the information age more than a century "ahead of schedule". This setting was different from most steampunk settings in that it takes a dim and dark view of this future, rather than the more prevalent utopian versions.


title: Steampunk

text: Nick Gevers's original anthology "Extraordinary Engines" (2008) features newer steampunk stories by some of the genre's writers, as well as other science fiction and fantasy writers experimenting with neo-Victorian conventions. A retrospective reprint anthology of steampunk fiction was released, also in 2008, by Tachyon Publications. Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and appropriately entitled "Steampunk", it is a collection of stories by James Blaylock, whose "Narbondo" trilogy is typically considered steampunk; Jay Lake, author of the novel "Mainspring", sometimes labeled "clockpunk"; the aforementioned Michael Moorcock; as well as Jess Nevins, known for his annotations to "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (first published in 1999).


title: Steampunk

text: Younger readers have also been targeted by steampunk themes, by authors such as Philip Reeve and Scott Westerfeld. Reeve's quartet "Mortal Engines" is set far in Earth's future where giant moving cities consume each other in a battle for resources, a concept Reeve coined as "Municipal Darwinism". Westerfeld's "Leviathan" trilogy is set during an alternate First World War fought between the "clankers" (Central Powers), who use steam technology, and "darwinists" (Allied Powers), who use genetically engineered creatures instead of machines.


title: Steampunk

text: "Mash-ups" are also becoming increasingly popular in books aimed at younger readers, mixing steampunk with other genres. Stefan Bachmann's "The Peculiar" duology was labeled a "steampunk fairytale," and imagines steampunk technology as a means to stave off an incursion of faeries in Victorian England. Suzanne Lazear's "Aether Chronicles" series also mixes steampunk with faeries, and "The Unnaturalists", by Tiffany Trent, combines steampunk with mythological creatures and alternate history.


title: Steampunk

text: While most of the original steampunk works had a historical setting, later works often place steampunk elements in a fantasy world with little relation to any specific historic era. Historical steampunk tends to be science fiction that presents an alternate history; it also contains real locales and persons from history with alternative fantasy technology. "Fantasy-world steampunk", such as China Miéville's "Perdido Street Station", Alan Campbell's "Scar Night", and Stephen Hunt's Jackelian novels, on the other hand, presents steampunk in a completely imaginary fantasy realm, often populated by legendary creatures coexisting with steam-era and other anachronistic technologies. However, the works of China Miéville and similar authors are sometimes referred to as belonging to the "New Weird" rather than steampunk.


title: Steampunk

text: Self-described author of "far-fetched fiction" Robert Rankin has incorporated elements of steampunk into narrative worlds that are both Victorian and re-imagined contemporary. In 2009, he was made a Fellow of the Victorian Steampunk Society.


title: Steampunk

text: The comic book series "Hellboy", created by Mike Mignola, and the two "Hellboy" films featuring Ron Perlman and directed by Guillermo del Toro, all have steampunk elements. In the comic book and the first (2004) film, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen is a Nazi SS scientist who has an addiction to having himself surgically altered, and who has many mechanical prostheses, including a clockwork heart. The character Johann Krauss is featured in the comic and in the second film, "" (2008), as an ectoplasmic medium (a gaseous form in a partly mechanical suit). This second film also features the Golden Army itself, which is a collection of 4,900 mechanical steampunk warriors.


title: Steampunk

text: Since the 1990s, the application of the steampunk label has expanded beyond works set in recognisable historical periods, to works set in fantasy worlds that rely heavily on steam- or spring-powered technology. One of the earliest short stories relying on steam-powered flying machines is "The Aerial Burglar" of 1844. An example from juvenile fiction is "The Edge Chronicles" by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell.


title: Steampunk

text: Fantasy steampunk settings abound in tabletop and computer role-playing games. Notable examples include "Skies of Arcadia", "", and "".


title: Steampunk

text: One of the first steampunk novels set in a Middle-earth-like world was the "Forest of Boland Light Railway" by BB, about gnomes who build a steam locomotive. Fifty years later, Terry Pratchett wrote the Discworld novel "Raising Steam," about the ongoing industrial revolution and railway mania in Ankh-Morpork.


title: Steampunk

text: The gnomes and goblins in "World of Warcraft" also have technological societies that could be described as steampunk, as they are vastly ahead of the technologies of men, but still run on steam and mechanical power.


title: Steampunk

text: The Dwarves of the "Elder Scrolls" series, described therein as a race of Elves called the Dwemer, also use steam-powered machinery, with gigantic brass-like gears, throughout their underground cities. However, magical means are used to keep ancient devices in motion despite the Dwemer's ancient disappearance.


title: Steampunk

text: The 1998 game "", as well as the other sequels including its 2014 reboot, feature heavy steampunk-inspired architecture, setting, and technology.


title: Steampunk

text: Amidst the historical and fantasy subgenres of steampunk is a type that takes place in a hypothetical future or a fantasy equivalent of our future involving the domination of steampunk-style technology and aesthetics. Examples include Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's "The City of Lost Children" (1995), "Turn A Gundam" (1999–2000), "Trigun", and Disney's film "Treasure Planet" (2002). In 2011, musician Thomas Dolby heralded his return to music after a 20-year hiatus with an online steampunk alternate fantasy world called the Floating City, to promote his album "A Map of the Floating City".


title: Steampunk

text: Another setting is "Western" steampunk, which overlaps with both the Weird West and Science fiction Western subgenres. One of the earliest steampunk books set in America was "The Steam Man of the Prairies" by Edward S. Ellis. Recent examples include the TV show and the movie adaption "Wild Wild West", the Italian comics about Magico Vento, Devon Monk's "Dead Iron", and the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Disneyland-style Disney Parks around the world.


title: Steampunk

text: Kaja Foglio introduced the term "Gaslight Romance", gaslamp fantasy, which John Clute and John Grant define as "steampunk stories ... most commonly set in a romanticised, smoky, 19th-century London, as are Gaslight Romances. But the latter category focuses nostalgically on icons from the late years of that century and the early years of the 20th century—on Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and even Tarzan—and can normally be understood as combining supernatural fiction and recursive fantasy, though some gaslight romances can be read as fantasies of history." Author/artist James Richardson-Brown coined the term "steamgoth" to refer to steampunk expressions of fantasy and horror with a "darker" bent.


title: Steampunk

text: Mary Shelley's "The Last Man", set near the end of the 21st century after a plague had brought down civilization, was probably the ancestor of post-apocalyptic steampunk literature. Post-apocalyptic steampunk is set in a world where some cataclysm has precipitated the fall of civilization and steam power is once again ascendant, such as in Hayao Miyazaki's post-apocalyptic anime "Future Boy Conan" (1978, loosely based on Alexander Key's "The Incredible Tide" (1970)), where a war fought with superweapons has devastated the planet. Robert Brown's novel, "The Wrath of Fate" (as well as much of Abney Park's music) is set in a Victorianesque world where an apocalypse was set into motion by a time-traveling mishap. Cherie Priest's Boneshaker series is set in a world where a zombie apocalypse happened during the Civil War era. "The Peshawar Lancers" by S.M. Stirling is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which a meteor shower in 1878 caused the collapse of industrialized civilization. The movie 9 (which might be better classified as "stitchpunk" but was largely influenced by steampunk) is also set in a post-apocalyptic world after a self-aware war machine ran amok. "Steampunk Magazine" even published a book called "A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse", about how steampunks could survive should such a thing actually happen.


title: Steampunk

text: In general, this category includes any recent science fiction that takes place in a recognizable historical period (sometimes an alternate history version of an actual historical period) in which the Industrial Revolution has already begun, but electricity is not yet widespread, "usually Britain of the early to mid-nineteenth century or the fantasized Wild West-era United States", with an emphasis on steam- or spring-propelled gadgets. The most common historical steampunk settings are the Victorian and Edwardian eras, though some in this "Victorian steampunk" category are set as early as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and as late as the end of World War I.


title: Steampunk

text: Some examples of this type include the novel "The Difference Engine", the comic book series "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", the Disney animated film "", Scott Westerfeld's "Leviathan" trilogy, and the roleplaying game "." The anime film "Steamboy" (2004) is another example of Victorian steampunk, taking place in an alternate 1866 where steam technology is far more advanced than reality. Some, such as the comic series "Girl Genius", have their own unique times and places despite partaking heavily of the flavor of historic settings. Other comic series are set in a more familiar London, as in the "Victorian Undead", which has Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, and others taking on zombies, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and Count Dracula, with advanced weapons and devices. Another example of this genre is the "Tunnels" novels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams. These are set in the modern day, but with an underground Victorian world that is working to overthrow the world above. Detective graphic novel series Lady Mechanika is set in an alternative Victorian-like world.


title: Steampunk

text: Karel Zeman's film "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" (1958) is a very early example of cinematic steampunk. Based on Jules Verne novels, Zeman's film imagines a past that never was, based on those novels. Other early examples of historical steampunk in cinema include Hayao Miyazaki's anime films such as "" (1986) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004), which contain many archetypal anachronisms characteristic of the steampunk genre.


title: Steampunk

text: "Historical" steampunk usually leans more towards science fiction than fantasy, but a number of historical steampunk stories have incorporated magical elements as well. For example, "Morlock Night", written by K. W. Jeter, revolves around an attempt by the wizard Merlin to raise King Arthur to save the Britain of 1892 from an invasion of Morlocks from the future.


title: Steampunk

text: Paul Guinan's "Boilerplate", a "biography" of a robot in the late 19th century, began as a website that garnered international press coverage when people began believing that Photoshop images of the robot with historic personages were real. The site was adapted into the illustrated hardbound book "Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel", which was published by Abrams in October 2009. Because the story was not set in an alternative history, and in fact contained accurate information about the Victorian era, some booksellers referred to the tome as "historical steampunk".


title: Steampunk

text: Fictional settings inspired by East Asian rather than Western history, especially those inspired by Chinese history, have been called "silkpunk". The term originated with the author Ken Liu, who defined it as "a blend of science fiction and fantasy [that] draws inspiration from classical East Asian antiquity", with a "technology vocabulary (...) based on organic materials historically important to East Asia (bamboo, paper, silk) and seafaring cultures of the Pacific (coconut, feathers, coral)", rather than the brass and leather associated with steampunk. Liu used the term to describe his "Dandelion Dynasty" series, which began in 2015. Other works described as silkpunk include Neon Yang's "Tensorate" series of novellas, which began in 2017. Lyndsie Manusos of Book Riot has argued that the genre does "not fit in a direct analogy with steampunk. Silkpunk is technology and poetics. It is engineering and language."


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk music is very broadly defined. Abney Park's lead singer Robert Brown defined it as "mixing Victorian elements and modern elements". There is a broad range of musical influences that make up the steampunk sound, from industrial dance and world music to folk rock, dark cabaret to straightforward punk, Carnatic to industrial, hip-hop to opera (and even industrial hip-hop opera), darkwave to progressive rock, barbershop to big band.


title: Steampunk

text: Joshua Pfeiffer (of Vernian Process) is quoted as saying, "As for Paul Roland, if anyone deserves credit for spearheading Steampunk music, it is him. He was one of the inspirations I had in starting my project. He was writing songs about the first attempt at manned flight, and an Edwardian airship raid in the mid-80s long before almost anyone else..." Thomas Dolby is also considered one of the early pioneers of retro-futurist (i.e., Steampunk and Dieselpunk) music. Amanda Palmer was once quoted as saying, "Thomas Dolby is to Steampunk what Iggy Pop was to Punk!"


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk has also appeared in the work of musicians who do not specifically identify as steampunk. For example, the music video of "Turn Me On", by David Guetta and featuring Nicki Minaj, takes place in a steampunk universe where Guetta creates human androids. Another music video is "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", by Panic! at the Disco, which has a distinct Victorian steampunk theme. A continuation of this theme has been used throughout the 2011 album "Vices & Virtues", in the music videos, album art, and tour set and costumes. In addition, the album "Clockwork Angels" (2012) and its supporting tour by progressive rock band Rush contain lyrics, themes, and imagery based around steampunk. Similarly, Abney Park headlined the first "Steamstock" outdoor steampunk music festival in Richmond, California, which also featured Thomas Dolby, Frenchy and the Punk, Lee Presson and the Nails, Vernian Process, and others.


title: Steampunk

text: "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" (1958) and "The Fabulous Baron Munchausen" (1962), both directed by Karel Zeman, have steampunk elements. The 1965 television series "The Wild Wild West", as well as the 1999 film of the same name, features many elements of advanced steam-powered technology set in the Wild West time period of the United States. "Two Years' Vacation" (or "The Stolen Airship") (1967) directed by Karel Zeman contains steampunk elements.


title: Steampunk

text: The BBC series "Doctor Who" also incorporates steampunk elements. Several storylines can be classed as steampunk, most notably "The Evil of the Daleks" (1966), wherein Victorian scientists invent a time travel device using mirrors and static electricity. During season 14 of the show (in 1976), the formerly futuristic looking interior set was replaced with a Victorian-styled wood-panel and brass affair. In the 1996 American co-production, the TARDIS interior was re-designed to resemble an almost Victorian library with the central control console made up of an eclectic array of anachronistic objects. Modified and streamlined for the 2005 revival of the series, the TARDIS console continued to incorporate steampunk elements, including a Victorian typewriter and gramophone, for many years.


title: Steampunk

text: "Dinner for Adele" (1977) directed by Oldřich Lipský involves steampunk contraptions. The 1979 film "Time After Time" has Herbert George "H.G." Wells following a surgeon named John Leslie Stevenson into the future, as John is suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Both separately use Wells's time machine to travel.


title: Steampunk

text: "The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians", (1981) directed by Oldřich Lipský, contains steampunk elements. The 1982 American TV series "Q.E.D." is set in Edwardian England, stars Sam Waterston as Professor Quentin Everett Deverill (from whose initials, by which he is primarily known, the series title is derived, initials which also stand for the Latin phrase "quod erat demonstrandum", which translates as "which was to be demonstrated"). The Professor is an inventor and scientific detective, in the mold of Sherlock Holmes. The plot of the Soviet film "Kin-dza-dza!" (1986) centers on a desert planet, depleted of its resources, where an impoverished dog-eat-dog society uses steampunk machines, the movements and functions of which defy Earthly logic.


title: Steampunk

text: In making his 1986 Japanese film "Castle in the Sky", Hayao Miyazaki was heavily influenced by steampunk culture, the film featuring various airships and steampowered contraptions as well as a mysterious island that floats through the sky, accomplished not through magic as in most stories, but instead by harnessing the physical properties of a rare crystal—analogous to the lodestone used in the Laputa of Swift's Gulliver's Travels—augmented by massive propellers, as befitting the Victorian motif. The first "Wallace & Gromit" animation "A Grand Day Out" (1989) features a space rocket in the steampunk style.


title: Steampunk

text: "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.", a 1993 Fox Network TV science fiction-Western set in the 1890s, features elements of steampunk as represented by the character Professor Wickwire, whose inventions were described as "the coming thing". The short-lived 1995 TV show "Legend", on UPN, set in 1876 Arizona, features such classic inventions as a steam-driven "quadrovelocipede", trigoggle and night-vision goggles (à la teslapunk), and stars John de Lancie as a thinly disguised Nikola Tesla.


title: Steampunk

text: Alan Moore's and Kevin O'Neill's 1999 "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" graphic novel series (and the subsequent 2003 film adaption) greatly popularised the steampunk genre.


title: Steampunk

text: "Steamboy" (2004) is a Japanese animated action film directed and co-written by Katsuhiro Otomo ("Akira"). It is a retro science-fiction epic set in a steampunk Victorian England. It features steamboats, trains, airships and inventors. The 2004 film "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" contains steampunk-esque elements such as costumes and vehicle interiors. The 2007 Syfy miniseries "Tin Man" incorporates a considerable number of steampunk-inspired themes into a reimagining of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Despite leaning more towards Gothic influences, the "parallel reality" of Meanwhile, City, within the 2009 film "Franklyn" contains many steampunk themes, such as costumery, architecture, minimal use of electricity (with a preference for gaslight), and absence of modern technology (such as there being no motorised vehicles or advanced weaponry, and the manual management of information without computers).


title: Steampunk

text: The 2009–2014 Syfy television series "Warehouse 13" features many steampunk-inspired objects and artifacts, including computer designs created by steampunk artisan Richard Nagy, a.k.a. "Datamancer". The 2010 episode of the TV series "Castle" entitled "Punked" (which first aired on October 11, 2010) prominently features the steampunk subculture and uses Los Angeles-area steampunks (such as the League of STEAM) as extras. The 2011 film "The Three Musketeers" has many steampunk elements, including gadgets and airships.


title: Steampunk

text: "The Legend of Korra", a 2012–2014 Nickelodeon animated series, incorporates steampunk elements in an industrialized world with East Asian themes.


title: Steampunk

text: The "Penny Dreadful" (2014) television series is a Gothic Victorian fantasy series with steampunk props and costumes.


title: Steampunk

text: The 2015 GSN reality television game show "Steampunk'd" features a competition to create steampunk-inspired art and designs which are judged by notable steampunks Thomas Willeford, Kato, and Matthew Yang King (as Matt King). Based on the work of cartoonist Jacques Tardi, "April and the Extraordinary World" (2015) is an animated movie set in a steampunk Paris. It features airships, trains, submarines, and various other steam-powered contraptions. Tim Burton's 2016 film "Alice Through the Looking Glass" features steampunk costumes, props, and vehicles.


title: Steampunk

text: The American fantasy animated sitcom, "Disenchantment", created by Matt Groening for Netflix, features a steampunk country named Steamland, led by an odd industrialist named Alva Gunderson voiced by Richard Ayoade, first appears in the season 1 episode, "The Electric Princess." The country is portrayed as driven by logic and is egalitarian, governed by science, rather than magic, as is the case for Dreamland, where the protagonist, Princess Bean, is from. The country has cars, automatic lights, submarines, and other modern technologies, all of which are steam-powered, and references to Groening's other series, "Futurama". Steamland appears in three episodes of the show's second season, showing an explorers club as part of the country's high society, flying zeppelins, and robots with light bulbs for heads that chase the protagonists through the streets. Some even argued that Steamland is "dieselpunk-inspired."


title: Steampunk

text: "Steel Empire" (1992), a shoot 'em up game originally released as "Koutetsu Teikoku" on the Sega Mega Drive console in Japan, is considered to be the first steampunk video game. Designed by Yoshinori Satake and inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's anime film "" (1986), "Steel Empire" is set in an alternate timeline dominated by steam-powered technology. The commercial success of "Steel Empire", both in Japan and the West, helped propel steampunk into the video game market, and had a significant influence on later steampunk games. The most notable steampunk game it influenced is "Final Fantasy VI" (1994), a Japanese role-playing game developed by Squaresoft and designed by Hiroyuki Ito for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. "Final Fantasy VI" was both critically and commercially successful, and had a considerable influence on later steampunk video games.


title: Steampunk

text: "The Chaos Engine" (1993) is a run and gun video game inspired by the Gibson/Sterling novel "The Difference Engine" (1990), set in a Victorian steampunk age. Developed by the Bitmap Brothers, it was first released on the Amiga in 1993; a sequel was released in 1996. The graphic adventure puzzle video games "Myst" (1993), "Riven" (1997), "" (2001), and "" (all produced by or under the supervision of Cyan Worlds) take place in an alternate steampunk universe, where elaborate infrastructures have been built to run on steam power. "The Elder Scrolls" (since 1994, last release in 2014) is an action role-playing game where one can find an ancient extinct race called dwemers or dwarves, whose steampunk technology is based on steam-powered levers and gears made of copper-bronze material, which are maintained by magical techniques that have kept them in working order over the centuries.


title: Steampunk

text: "Sakura Wars" (1996), a visual novel and tactical role-playing game developed by Sega for the Saturn console, is set in a steampunk version of Japan during the Meiji and Taishō periods, and features steam-powered mecha robots. "" (1998), its sequels, "Thief II" (2000), "" (2004) and its reboot "Thief" (2014) are set in a steampunk metropolis. The 2001 computer role-playing game "" mixed fantasy tropes with steampunk.


title: Steampunk

text: The "Professor Layton" series of games (2007 debut) has several entries showcasing steampunk machinery and vehicles. Notably "Professor Layton and the Unwound Future" features a quasi-steampunk future setting. "Solatorobo" (2010) is a role-playing video game developed by CyberConnect2 set in a floating island archipelago populated by anthropomorphic cats and dogs, who pilot steampunk airships and engage in combat with robots. "Resonance of Fate" (2010) is a role-playing video game developed by tri-Ace and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is set in a steampunk environment with combat involving guns.


title: Steampunk

text: "Impossible Creatures" (2003) real-time strategy game inspired by the works of H. G. Welles, especially "The Island of Doctor Moreau". Developed by Relic Entertainment, it sees an adventurer building an army of genetically spliced animals to battle against a mad scientist who has abducted his father. The player's headquarters is a steam-powered "Hovertrain" locomotive, which functions as both a science lab and mobile command center. Coal is a key resource in the game, and must be burned to provide power to the players many base buildings.


title: Steampunk

text: The "SteamWorld" series of games (2010 debut) has the player controlling steam-powered robots. "Minecraft" (2011) has a steampunk-themed texture pack. "Terraria" (2011) is a video game developed by Re-Logic. It is a 2D open world platform game in which the player controls a single character in a generated world. It has a Steampunker non-player character in the game who sells items referencing Steampunk.


title: Steampunk

text: "LittleBigPlanet 2" (2011) has the world Victoria's Laboratory, run by Victoria von Bathysphere, which mixes steampunk themes with confections. "Guns of Icarus Online" (2012) is multiplayer game with steampunk themes. "Dishonored" (2012) and "Dishonored 2" (2016) are set within a fictional world with heavy steampunk influences, wherein whale oil, as opposed to coal, served as catalyst for their industrial revolution.


title: Steampunk

text: "Dishonored" is a series (2012 debut) of stealth games with role-playing elements developed by Arkane Studios and widely considered to be a spiritual successor of the original "Thief" trilogy. Set in the Empire of the Isles, a steampunk Victorian metropolis where technology and supernatural magic coexist. Steam-powered robots and mechanical combat suits are present as enemies, as well as the presence of magic. The major locations in the Isles include Dunwall, the Empire's capital city which uses the burning of whale oil as the city's main fuel source, and Karnaca, which is powered by wind turbines fed by currents generated by a cleft mountain along the city's borders.


title: Steampunk

text: "BioShock Infinite" (2013) is a first-person shooter game set in 1912, in a fictional city called Columbia, which uses technology to float in the sky and has many historical and religious scenes.


title: Steampunk

text: "" (2014), a Japanese otome game for the PS Vita is set in a steampunk Victorian London, and features a cast with several historical figures with steampunk aesthetics. "Code Name S.T.E.A.M." (2015), a Japanese tactical RPG game for the 3DS set in a steampunk fantasy version of London where you are a conscript in the strike force S.T.E.A.M. (short for Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace). "They Are Billions" (2017), is a steampunk strategy game in a post-apocalyptic setting. Players build a colony and attempt to ward off waves of zombies. "Frostpunk" (2018) is a city-building game set in 1888, but where the Earth is in the midst of a great Ice Age. Players must construct a city around a large steampunk heat generator with many steampunk aesthetics and mechanics, such as a "Steam Core."


title: Steampunk

text: Because of the popularity of steampunk, there is a growing movement of adults that want to establish steampunk as a culture and lifestyle. Some fans of the genre adopt a steampunk aesthetic through fashion, home decor, music, and film. While Steampunk is considered the amalgamation of Victorian aesthetic principles with modern sensibilities and technologies, it can be more broadly categorised as neo-Victorianism, described by scholar Marie-Luise Kohlke as "the afterlife of the nineteenth century in the cultural imaginary". The subculture has its own magazine, blogs, and online shops.


title: Steampunk

text: In September 2012, a panel, chaired by steampunk entertainer Veronique Chevalier and with panelists including magician Pop Hadyn and members of the steampunk performance group the League of STEAM, was held at Stan Lee's Comikaze Expo. The panel suggested that because steampunk was inclusive of and incorporated ideas from various other subcultures such as goth, neo-Victorian, and cyberpunk, as well as a growing number of fandoms, it was fast becoming a "super-culture" rather than a mere subculture. Other steampunk notables such as Professor Elemental have expressed similar views about steampunk's inclusive diversity.


title: Steampunk

text: Some have proposed a steampunk philosophy that incorporates punk-inspired anti-establishment sentiments typically bolstered by optimism about human potential. A 2004 "Steampunk Manifesto", later republished in "SteamPunk Magazine", lamented that most "so-called" steampunk was nothing more than dressed-up recreationary nostalgia and proposed that "authentic" steampunk would "take the levers of technology from the [technocrats] and powerful." American activist and performer Miriam Rosenberg Rocek impersonated anarcha-feminist Emma Goldman to inspire discussions around gender, society and politics. "SteamPunk Magazine" was edited and published by anarchists. Its founder, Margaret Killjoy, argued "there have always been radical politics at the core of steampunk." Diana M. Pho, a science-fiction editor and author of the multicultural steampunk blog "Beyond Victoriana", similarly argued steampunk's "progressive roots" can be traced to its literary inspirations, including Verne's Captain Nemo. Steampunk authors Phenderson Djèlí Clark, Jaymee Goh, Dru Pagliassotti, and Charlie Stross consider their work political.


title: Steampunk

text: These views are not universally shared. Killjoy lamented that even some diehard enthusiasts believe steampunk "has nothing to offer but designer clothes." Pho argued many steampunk fans "don't like to acknowledge that their attitudes could be considered ideological." The largest online steampunk community, "Brass Goggles", which is dedicated to what it calls the "lighter side" of steampunk, banned discussion about politics. Cory Gross, who was one of the first to write about the history and theory of steampunk, argued that the "sepia-toned yesteryear more appropriate for Disney and grandparents than a vibrant and viable philosophy or culture" denounced in the "Steampunk Manifesto" was in fact representative of the genre. Author Catherynne M. Valente called the punk in steampunk "nearly meaningless." Kate Franklin and James Schafer, who at the time managed one of the largest steampunk groups on Facebook, admitted in 2011 that steampunk hadn't created the "revolutionary, or even a particularly progressive" community they wanted. Blogger and podcaster Eric Renderking Fisk announced in 2017 that steampunk was no longer punk, since it had "lost the anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment aspects."


title: Steampunk

text: Others argued explicitly against turning steampunk into a political movement, preferring to see steampunk as "escapism" or a "fandom". In 2018, Nick Ottens, editor of the online alternate-history magazine "Never Was", declared that the "lighter side" of steampunk had won out. To the extent that steampunk is politicized, it appears to be an American and British phenomenon. Continental Europeans and Latin Americans are more likely to consider steampunk a hobby than a cause.


title: Steampunk

text: June 19, 2005 marked the grand opening of the world's first steampunk club night, "Malediction Society", in Los Angeles. The event ran for nearly 12 years at The Monte Cristo nightclub, interrupted by a single year residency at Argyle Hollywood, until both the club night and The Monte Cristo closed in April 2017. Though the steampunk aesthetic eventually gave way to a more generic goth and industrial aesthetic, Malediction Society celebrated its roots every year with "The Steampunk Ball".


title: Steampunk

text: 2006 saw the first "SalonCon", a neo-Victorian/steampunk convention. It ran for three consecutive years and featured artists, musicians (Voltaire and Abney Park), authors (Catherynne M. Valente, Ekaterina Sedia, and G. D. Falksen), salons led by people prominent in their respective fields, workshops and panels on steampunk—as well as a seance, ballroom dance instruction, and the Chrononauts' Parade. The event was covered by MTV and "The New York Times". Since then, a number of popular steampunk conventions have sprung up the world over, with names like Steamcon (Seattle), the Steampunk World's Fair (Piscataway, New Jersey), Up in the Aether: The Steampunk Convention (Dearborn, Michigan), Steampunk NZ (Oamaru, New Zealand), Steampunk Unlimited (Strasburg Railroad, Lancaster, PA). Each year, on Mother's Day weekend, the city of Waltham, MA, turns over its city center and surrounding areas to host the Watch City Steampunk Festival, a US outdoor steampunk festival. In Kennebunk, ME the Brick Store Museum hosts the Southern Maine Steampunk Fair annually. During the first weekend of May, the Australian town of Nimmitabel celebrates Steampunk @ Altitude with some 2,000 attendance.


title: Steampunk

text: In recent years, steampunk has also become a regular feature at San Diego Comic-Con International, with the Saturday of the four-day event being generally known among steampunks as "Steampunk Day", and culminating with a photo-shoot for the local press. In 2010, this was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest steampunk photo shoot. In 2013, Comic-Con announced four official 2013 T-shirts, one of them featuring the official Rick Geary Comic-Con toucan mascot in steampunk attire. The Saturday steampunk "after-party" has also become a major event on the steampunk social calendar: in 2010, the headliners included The Slow Poisoner, Unextraordinary Gentlemen, and Voltaire, with Veronique Chevalier as Mistress of Ceremonies and special appearance by the League of STEAM; in 2011, UXG returned with Abney Park.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk has also sprung up recently at Renaissance Festivals and Renaissance Faires, in the US. Some festivals have organised events or a "Steampunk Day", while others simply support an open environment for donning steampunk attire. The Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the Wisconsin/Illinois border, featured a Steampunk costume contest during the 2012 season, the previous two seasons having seen increasing participation in the phenomenon.


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk also has a growing following in the UK and Europe. The largest European event is "Weekend at the Asylum", held at The Lawn, Lincoln, every September since 2009. Organised as a not-for-profit event by the Victorian Steampunk Society, the Asylum is a dedicated steampunk event which takes over much of the historical quarter of Lincoln, England, along with Lincoln Castle. In 2011, there were over 1000 steampunks in attendance. The event features the Empire Ball, Majors Review, Bazaar Eclectica, and the international Tea Duelling final.


title: Steampunk

text: A 2018 physics Ph.D. dissertation used the phrase "Quantum Steampunk" to describe the author's synthesis of some 19th century and current ideas. The term has not been widely adopted.


title: Steampunk

text: A 2012 conference paper on human factors in computing systems examines the use of steampunk as a design fiction for human-computer interaction (HCI). It concludes that "the practices of DIY and appropriation that are evident in Steampunk design provide a useful set of design strategies and implications for HCI".


title: Steampunk

text: Steampunk HQ, a museum and arts centre dedicated to steampunk in Oamaru, New Zealand, along with its associated art gallery (The Libratory), was the world's first steampunk museum. The town of Oamaru and the English city of Lincoln have both claimed the title of "Steampunk Capital of the World".


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Macedonia (; ), also called Macedon (), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom outside of the area dominated by the great city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and briefly subordinate to Achaemenid Persia. During the reign of the Argead king PhilipII (359–336 BC), Macedonia subdued mainland Greece and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom through conquest and diplomacy. With a reformed army containing phalanxes wielding the "sarissa" pike, PhilipII defeated the old powers of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338BC. PhilipII's son Alexander the Great, leading a federation of Greek states, accomplished his father's objective of commanding the whole of Greece when he destroyed Thebes after the city revolted. During Alexander's subsequent campaign of conquest, he overthrew the Achaemenid Empire and conquered territory that stretched as far as the Indus River. For a brief period, his Macedonian Empire was the most powerful in the world – the definitive Hellenistic state, inaugurating the transition to a new period of Ancient Greek civilization. Greek arts and literature flourished in the new conquered lands and advances in philosophy, engineering, and science spread throughout much of the ancient world. Of particular importance were the contributions of Aristotle, tutor to Alexander, whose writings became a keystone of Western philosophy.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: After Alexander's death in 323BC, the ensuing wars of the Diadochi, and the partitioning of Alexander's short-lived empire, Macedonia remained a Greek cultural and political center in the Mediterranean region along with Ptolemaic Egypt, the Seleucid Empire, and the Kingdom of Pergamon. Important cities such as Pella, Pydna, and Amphipolis were involved in power struggles for control of the territory. New cities were founded, such as Thessalonica by the usurper Cassander (named after his wife Thessalonike of Macedon). Macedonia's decline began with the Macedonian Wars and the rise of Rome as the leading Mediterranean power. At the end of the Third Macedonian War in 168BC, the Macedonian monarchy was abolished and replaced by Roman client states. A short-lived revival of the monarchy during the Fourth Macedonian War in 150–148BC ended with the establishment of the Roman province of Macedonia.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The Macedonian kings, who wielded absolute power and commanded state resources such as gold and silver, facilitated mining operations to mint currency, finance their armies and, by the reign of PhilipII, a Macedonian navy. Unlike the other "diadochi" successor states, the imperial cult fostered by Alexander was never adopted in Macedonia, yet Macedonian rulers nevertheless assumed roles as high priests of the kingdom and leading patrons of domestic and international cults of the Hellenistic religion. The authority of Macedonian kings was theoretically limited by the institution of the army, while a few municipalities within the Macedonian commonwealth enjoyed a high degree of autonomy and even had democratic governments with popular assemblies.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The name Macedonia (, "") comes from the ethnonym (), which itself is derived from the ancient Greek adjective μακεδνός (), meaning "tall, slim", also the name of a people related to the Dorians (Herodotus), and possibly descriptive of Ancient Macedonians. It is most likely cognate with the adjective (), meaning "long" or "tall" in Ancient Greek. The name is believed to have originally meant either "highlanders", "the tall ones", or "high grown men". Linguist Robert S. P. Beekes claims that both terms are of Pre-Greek substrate origin and cannot be explained in terms of Indo-European morphology, however Filip De Decker rejects Beekesʼ arguments as insufficient.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The Classical Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides reported the legend that the Macedonian kings of the Argead dynasty were descendants of Temenus, king of Argos, and could therefore claim the mythical Heracles as one of their ancestors as well as a direct lineage from Zeus, chief god of the Greek pantheon. Contradictory legends state that either Perdiccas I of Macedon or Caranus of Macedon were the founders of the Argead dynasty, with either five or eight kings before AmyntasI. The assertion that the Argeads descended from Temenus was accepted by the "Hellanodikai" authorities of the Ancient Olympic Games, permitting Alexander I of Macedon () to enter the competitions owing to his perceived Greek heritage. Little is known about the kingdom before the reign of AlexanderI's father Amyntas I of Macedon () during the Archaic period.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The kingdom of Macedonia was situated along the Haliacmon and Axius rivers in Lower Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus. Historian Robert Malcolm Errington suggests that one of the earliest Argead kings established Aigai (modern Vergina) as their capital in the mid-7th centuryBC. Before the 4th centuryBC, the kingdom covered a region corresponding roughly to the western and central parts of the region of Macedonia in modern Greece. It gradually expanded into the region of Upper Macedonia, inhabited by the Greek Lyncestae and Elimiotae tribes, and into regions of Emathia, Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Almopia, which were inhabited by various peoples such as Thracians and Phrygians. Macedonia's non-Greek neighbors included Thracians, inhabiting territories to the northeast, Illyrians to the northwest, and Paeonians to the north, while the lands of Thessaly to the south and Epirus to the west were inhabited by Greeks with similar cultures to that of the Macedonians.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: A year after Darius I of Persia () launched an invasion into Europe against the Scythians, Paeonians, Thracians, and several Greek city-states of the Balkans, the Persian general Megabazus used diplomacy to convince AmyntasI to submit as a vassal of the Achaemenid Empire, ushering in the period of Achaemenid Macedonia. Achaemenid Persian hegemony over Macedonia was briefly interrupted by the Ionian Revolt (499–493BC), yet the Persian general Mardonius brought it back under Achaemenid suzerainty.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Although Macedonia enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and was never made a satrapy (i.e. province) of the Achaemenid Empire, it was expected to provide troops for the Achaemenid army. AlexanderI provided Macedonian military support to Xerxes I () during the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480–479 BC, and Macedonian soldiers fought on the side of the Persians at the 479BC Battle of Platea. Following the Greek victory at Salamis in 480BC, AlexanderI was employed as an Achaemenid diplomat to propose a peace treaty and alliance with Athens, an offer that was rejected. Soon afterwards, the Achaemenid forces were forced to withdraw from mainland Europe, marking the end of Persian control over Macedonia.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Although initially a Persian vassal, AlexanderI of Macedon fostered friendly diplomatic relations with his former Greek enemies, the Athenian and Spartan-led coalition of Greek city-states. His successor PerdiccasII () led the Macedonians to war in four separate conflicts against Athens, leader of the Delian League, while incursions by the Thracian ruler Sitalces of the Odrysian kingdom threatened Macedonia's territorial integrity in the northeast. The Athenian statesman Pericles promoted colonization of the Strymon River near the Kingdom of Macedonia, where the colonial city of Amphipolis was founded in 437/436BC so that it could provide Athens with a steady supply of silver and gold as well as timber and pitch to support the Athenian navy. Initially Perdiccas II did not take any action and might have even welcomed the Athenians, as the Thracians were foes to both of them. This changed due to an Athenian alliance with a brother and cousin of PerdiccasII who had rebelled against him. Thus, two separate wars were fought against Athens between 433 and 431BC. The Macedonian king retaliated by promoting the rebellion of Athens' allies in Chalcidice and subsequently won over the strategic city of Potidaea. After capturing the Macedonian cities Therma and Beroea, Athens besieged Potidaea but failed to overcome it; Therma was returned to Macedonia and much of Chalcidice to Athens in a peace treaty brokered by Sitalces, who provided Athens with military aid in exchange for acquiring new Thracian allies.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: PerdiccasII sided with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) between Athens and Sparta, and in 429 BC Athens retaliated by persuading Sitalces to invade Macedonia, but he was forced to retreat owing to a shortage of provisions in winter. In 424 BC, Arrhabaeus, a local ruler of Lynkestis in Upper Macedonia, rebelled against his overlord Perdiccas, and the Spartans agreed to help in putting down the revolt. At the Battle of Lyncestis the Macedonians panicked and fled before the fighting began, enraging the Spartan general Brasidas, whose soldiers looted the unattended Macedonian baggage train. Perdiccas then changed sides and supported Athens, and he was able to put down Arrhabaeus's revolt.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Brasidas died in 422 BC, the year Athens and Sparta struck an accord, the Peace of Nicias, that freed Macedonia from its obligations as an Athenian ally. Following the 418BC Battle of Mantinea, the victorious Spartans formed an alliance with Argos, a military pact PerdiccasII was keen to join given the threat of Spartan allies remaining in Chalcidice. When Argos suddenly switched sides as a pro-Athenian democracy, the Athenian navy was able to form a blockade against Macedonian seaports and invade Chalcidice in 417BC. PerdiccasII sued for peace in 414BC, forming an alliance with Athens that was continued by his son and successor ArchelausI (). Athens then provided naval support to ArchelausI in the 410BC Macedonian siege of Pydna, in exchange for timber and naval equipment.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Although Archelaus I was faced with some internal revolts and had to fend off an invasion of Illyrians led by Sirras of Lynkestis, he was able to project Macedonian power into Thessaly where he sent military aid to his allies. Although he retained Aigai as a ceremonial and religious center, ArchelausI moved the capital of the kingdom north to Pella, which was then positioned by a lake with a river connecting it to the Aegean Sea. He improved Macedonia's currency by minting coins with a higher silver content as well as issuing separate copper coinage. His royal court attracted the presence of well-known intellectuals such as the Athenian playwright Euripides. When ArchelausI was assassinated (perhaps following a homosexual love affair with royal pages at his court), the kingdom was plunged into chaos, in an era lasting from 399 to 393BC that included the reign of four different monarchs: Orestes, son of ArchelausI; AeropusII, uncle, regent, and murderer of Orestes; Pausanias, son of AeropusII; and AmyntasII, who was married to the youngest daughter of ArchelausI. Very little is known about this turbulent period; it came to an end when AmyntasIII (), son of Arrhidaeus and grandson of AmyntasI, killed Pausanias and claimed the Macedonian throne.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Amyntas III was forced to flee his kingdom in either 393 or 383BC (based on conflicting accounts), owing to a massive invasion by the Illyrians led by Bardylis. The pretender to the throne Argaeus ruled in his absence, yet AmyntasIII eventually returned to his kingdom with the aid of Thessalian allies. AmyntasIII was also nearly overthrown by the forces of the Chalcidian city of Olynthos, but with the aid of Teleutias, brother of the Spartan king Agesilaus II, the Macedonians forced Olynthos to surrender and dissolve their Chalcidian League in 379BC.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Alexander II (), son of EurydiceI and AmyntasIII, succeeded his father and immediately invaded Thessaly to wage war against the "tagus" (supreme Thessalian military leader) Alexander of Pherae, capturing the city of Larissa. The Thessalians, desiring to remove both AlexanderII and Alexander of Pherae as their overlords, appealed to Pelopidas of Thebes for aid; he succeeded in recapturing Larissa and, in the peace agreement arranged with Macedonia, received aristocratic hostages including AlexanderII's brother and future king PhilipII (). When Alexander was assassinated by his brother-in-law Ptolemy of Aloros, the latter acted as an overbearing regent for PerdiccasIII (), younger brother of AlexanderII, who eventually had Ptolemy executed when reaching the age of majority in 365BC. The remainder of Perdiccas III's reign was marked by political stability and financial recovery. However, an Athenian invasion led by Timotheus, son of Conon, managed to capture Methone and Pydna, and an Illyrian invasion led by Bardylis succeeded in killing PerdiccasIII and 4,000 Macedonian troops in battle.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Philip II was twenty-four years old when he acceded to the throne in 359BC. Through the use of deft diplomacy, he was able to convince the Thracians under Berisades to cease their support of Pausanias, a pretender to the throne, and the Athenians to halt their support of another pretender. He achieved these by bribing the Thracians and their Paeonian allies and establishing a treaty with Athens that relinquished his claims to Amphipolis. He was also able to make peace with the Illyrians who had threatened his borders.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Philip II spent his initial years radically transforming the Macedonian army. A reform of its organization, equipment, and training, including the introduction of the Macedonian phalanx armed with long pikes (i.e. the "sarissa"), proved immediately successful when tested against his Illyrian and Paeonian enemies. Confusing accounts in ancient sources have led modern scholars to debate how much PhilipII's royal predecessors may have contributed to these reforms and the extent to which his ideas were influenced by his adolescent years of captivity in Thebes as a political hostage during the Theban hegemony, especially after meeting with the general Epaminondas.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The Macedonians, like the other Greeks, traditionally practiced monogamy, but PhilipII practiced polygamy and married seven wives with perhaps only one that did not involve the loyalty of his aristocratic subjects or new allies. His first marriages were to Phila of Elimeia of the Upper Macedonian aristocracy as well as the Illyrian princess Audata to ensure a marriage alliance. To establish an alliance with Larissa in Thessaly, he married the Thessalian noblewoman Philinna in 358BC, who bore him a son who would later rule as Philip III Arrhidaeus (). In 357BC, he married Olympias to secure an alliance with Arybbas, the King of Epirus and the Molossians. This marriage would bear a son who would later rule as AlexanderIII (better known as Alexander the Great) and claim descent from the legendary Achilles by way of his dynastic heritage from Epirus. It is unclear whether or not the Achaemenid Persian kings influenced PhilipII's practice of polygamy, although his predecessor AmyntasIII had three sons with a possible second wife Gygaea: Archelaus, Arrhidaeus, and Menelaus. PhilipII had Archelaus put to death in 359BC, while PhilipII's other two half brothers fled to Olynthos, serving as a "casus belli" for the Olynthian War (349–348BC) against the Chalcidian League.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: While Athens was preoccupied with the Social War (357–355 BC), PhilipII retook Amphipolis from them in 357BC and the following year recaptured Pydna and Potidaea, the latter of which he handed over to the Chalcidian League as promised in a treaty. In 356BC, he took Crenides, refounding it as Philippi, while his general Parmenion defeated the Illyrian king Grabos II of the Grabaei. During the 355–354BC siege of Methone, PhilipII lost his right eye to an arrow wound, but managed to capture the city and treated the inhabitants cordially, unlike the Potidaeans, who had been enslaved.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Philip II then involved Macedonia in the Third Sacred War (356–346BC). It began when Phocis captured and plundered the temple of Apollo at Delphi instead of submitting unpaid fines, causing the Amphictyonic League to declare war on Phocis and a civil war among the members of the Thessalian League aligned with either Phocis or Thebes. PhilipII's initial campaign against Pherae in Thessaly in 353BC at the behest of Larissa ended in two disastrous defeats by the Phocian general Onomarchus. PhilipII in turn defeated Onomarchus in 352BC at the Battle of Crocus Field, which led to PhilipII's election as leader ("archon") of the Thessalian League, provided him a seat on the Amphictyonic Council, and allowed for a marriage alliance with Pherae by wedding Nicesipolis, niece of the tyrant Jason of Pherae.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Philip II had some early involvement with the Achaemenid Empire, especially by supporting satraps and mercenaries who rebelled against the central authority of the Achaemenid king. The satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia Artabazos II, who was in rebellion against Artaxerxes III, was able to take refuge as an exile at the Macedonian court from 352 to 342 BC. He was accompanied in exile by his family and by his mercenary general Memnon of Rhodes. Barsine, daughter of Artabazos, and future wife of Alexander the Great, grew up at the Macedonian court.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: After campaigning against the Thracian ruler Cersobleptes, in 349BC, PhilipII began his war against the Chalcidian League, which had been reestablished in 375BC following a temporary disbandment. Despite an Athenian intervention by Charidemus, Olynthos was captured by PhilipII in 348BC, and its inhabitants were sold into slavery, including some Athenian citizens. The Athenians, especially in a series of speeches by Demosthenes known as the "Olynthiacs", were unsuccessful in persuading their allies to counterattack and in 346BC concluded a treaty with Macedonia known as the Peace of Philocrates. The treaty stipulated that Athens would relinquish claims to Macedonian coastal territories, the Chalcidice, and Amphipolis in return for the release of the enslaved Athenians as well as guarantees that PhilipII would not attack Athenian settlements in the Thracian Chersonese. Meanwhile, Phocis and Thermopylae were captured by Macedonian forces, the Delphic temple robbers were executed, and PhilipII was awarded the two Phocian seats on the Amphictyonic Council and the position of master of ceremonies over the Pythian Games. Athens initially opposed his membership on the council and refused to attend the games in protest, but they eventually accepted these conditions, perhaps after some persuasion by Demosthenes in his oration "On the Peace".


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Over the next few years, Philip II reformed local governments in Thessaly, campaigned against the Illyrian ruler Pleuratus I, deposed Arybbas in Epirus in favor of his brother-in-law AlexanderI (through PhilipII's marriage to Olympias), and defeated Cersebleptes in Thrace. This allowed him to extend Macedonian control over the Hellespont in anticipation of an invasion into Achaemenid Anatolia. In 342BC, PhilipII conquered a Thracian city in what is now Bulgaria and renamed it Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv). War broke out with Athens in 340BC while PhilipII was engaged in two ultimately unsuccessful sieges of Perinthus and Byzantion, followed by a successful campaign against the Scythians along the Danube and Macedonia's involvement in the Fourth Sacred War against Amphissa in 339BC. Thebes ejected a Macedonian garrison from Nicaea (near Thermopylae), leading Thebes to join Athens, Megara, Corinth, Achaea, and Euboea in a final confrontation against Macedonia at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338BC. After the Macedonian victory at Chaeronea, PhilipII installed an oligarchy in Thebes, yet was lenient toward Athens, wishing to utilize their navy in a planned invasion of the Achaemenid Empire. He was then chiefly responsible for the formation of the League of Corinth that included the major Greek city-states except Sparta. Despite the Kingdom of Macedonia's official exclusion from the league, in 337BC, PhilipII was elected as the leader ("hegemon") of its council ("synedrion") and the commander-in-chief ("strategos autokrator") of a forthcoming campaign to invade the Achaemenid Empire. Philip's plan to punish the Persians for the suffering of the Greeks and to liberate the Greek cities of Asia Minor as well as perhaps the panhellenic fear of another Persian invasion of Greece, contributed to his decision to invade the Achaemenid Empire. The Persians offered aid to Perinthus and Byzantion in 341–340BC, highlighting Macedonia's strategic need to secure Thrace and the Aegean Sea against increasing Achaemenid encroachment, as the Persian king Artaxerxes III further consolidated his control over satrapies in western Anatolia. The latter region, yielding far more wealth and valuable resources than the Balkans, was also coveted by the Macedonian king for its sheer economic potential.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: When Philip II married Cleopatra Eurydice, niece of general Attalus, talk of providing new potential heirs at the wedding feast infuriated PhilipII's son Alexander, a veteran of the Battle of Chaeronea, and his mother Olympias. They fled together to Epirus before Alexander was recalled to Pella by PhilipII. When PhilipII arranged a marriage between his son Arrhidaeus and Ada of Caria, daughter of Pixodarus, the Persian satrap of Caria, Alexander intervened and proposed to marry Ada instead. PhilipII then cancelled the wedding altogether and exiled Alexander's advisors Ptolemy, Nearchus, and Harpalus. To reconcile with Olympias, PhilipII had their daughter Cleopatra marry Olympias' brother (and Cleopatra's uncle) AlexanderI of Epirus, but PhilipII was assassinated by his bodyguard, Pausanias of Orestis, during their wedding feast and succeeded by Alexander in 336BC.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Modern scholars have argued over the possible role of AlexanderIII "the Great" and his mother Olympias in the assassination of PhilipII, noting the latter's choice to exclude Alexander from his planned invasion of Asia, choosing instead for him to act as regent of Greece and deputy "hegemon" of the League of Corinth, and the potential bearing of another male heir between PhilipII and his new wife, Cleopatra Eurydice. AlexanderIII () was immediately proclaimed king by an assembly of the army and leading aristocrats, chief among them being Antipater and Parmenion. By the end of his reign and military career in 323BC, Alexander would rule over an empire consisting of mainland Greece, Asia Minor, the Levant, ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and much of Central and South Asia (i.e. modern Pakistan). Among his first acts was the burial of his father at Aigai. The members of the League of Corinth revolted at the news of PhilipII's death, but were soon quelled by military force alongside persuasive diplomacy, electing Alexander as "hegemon" of the league to carry out the planned invasion of Achaemenid Persia.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: In 335 BC, Alexander fought against the Thracian tribe of the Triballi at Haemus Mons and along the Danube, forcing their surrender on Peuce Island. Shortly thereafter, the Illyrian chieftain Cleitus, son of Bardylis, threatened to attack Macedonia with the aid of Glaucias, king of the Taulantii, but Alexander took the initiative and besieged the Illyrians at Pelion (in modern Albania). When Thebes had once again revolted from the League of Corinth and was besieging the Macedonian garrison in the Cadmea, Alexander left the Illyrian front and marched to Thebes, which he placed under siege. After breaching the walls, Alexander's forces killed 6,000 Thebans, took 30,000 inhabitants as prisoners of war, and burned the city to the ground as a warning that convinced all other Greek states except Sparta not to challenge Alexander again.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Throughout his military career, Alexander won every battle that he personally commanded. His first victory against the Persians in Asia Minor at the Battle of the Granicus in 334BC used a small cavalry contingent as a distraction to allow his infantry to cross the river followed by a cavalry charge from his companion cavalry. Alexander led the cavalry charge at the Battle of Issus in 333BC, forcing the Persian king Darius III and his army to flee. DariusIII, despite having superior numbers, was again forced to flee the Battle of Gaugamela in 331BC. The Persian king was later captured and executed by his own satrap of Bactria and kinsman, Bessus, in 330BC. The Macedonian king subsequently hunted down and executed Bessus in what is now Afghanistan, securing the region of Sogdia in the process. At the 326BC Battle of the Hydaspes (modern-day Punjab), when the war elephants of King Porus of the Pauravas threatened Alexander's troops, he had them form open ranks to surround the elephants and dislodge their handlers by using their "sarissa" pikes. When his Macedonian troops threatened mutiny in 324BC at Opis, Babylonia (near modern Baghdad, Iraq), Alexander offered Macedonian military titles and greater responsibilities to Persian officers and units instead, forcing his troops to seek forgiveness at a staged banquet of reconciliation between Persians and Macedonians.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Alexander perhaps undercut his own rule by demonstrating signs of megalomania. While utilizing effective propaganda such as the cutting of the Gordian Knot, he also attempted to portray himself as a living god and son of Zeus following his visit to the oracle at Siwah in the Libyan Desert (in modern-day Egypt) in 331BC. His attempt in 327BC to have his men prostrate before him in Bactra in an act of "proskynesis" borrowed from the Persian kings was rejected as religious blasphemy by his Macedonian and Greek subjects after his court historian Callisthenes refused to perform this ritual. When Alexander had Parmenion murdered at Ecbatana (near modern Hamadan, Iran) in 330BC, this was "symptomatic of the growing gulf between the king's interests and those of his country and people", according to Errington. His murder of Cleitus the Black in 328BC is described as "vengeful and reckless" by Dawn L. Gilley and Ian Worthington. Continuing the polygamous habits of his father, Alexander encouraged his men to marry native women in Asia, leading by example when he wed Roxana, a Sogdian princess of Bactria. He then married Stateira II, eldest daughter of DariusIII, and Parysatis II, youngest daughter of Artaxerxes III, at the Susa weddings in 324BC.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Meanwhile, in Greece, the Spartan king Agis III attempted to lead a rebellion of the Greeks against Macedonia. He was defeated in 331BC at the Battle of Megalopolis by Antipater, who was serving as regent of Macedonia and deputy "hegemon" of the League of Corinth in Alexander's stead. Before Antipater embarked on his campaign in the Peloponnese, Memnon, the governor of Thrace, was dissuaded from rebellion by use of diplomacy. Antipater deferred the punishment of Sparta to the League of Corinth headed by Alexander, who ultimately pardoned the Spartans on the condition that they submit fifty nobles as hostages. Antipater's hegemony was somewhat unpopular in Greece due to his practice (perhaps by order of Alexander) of exiling malcontents and garrisoning cities with Macedonian troops, yet in 330BC, Alexander declared that the tyrannies installed in Greece were to be abolished and Greek freedom was to be restored.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: When Alexander the Great died at Babylon in 323BC, his mother Olympias immediately accused Antipater and his faction of poisoning him, although there is no evidence to confirm this. With no official heir apparent, the Macedonian military command split, with one side proclaiming Alexander's half-brother PhilipIII Arrhidaeus () as king and the other siding with the infant son of Alexander and Roxana, AlexanderIV (). Except for the Euboeans and Boeotians, the Greeks also immediately rose up in a rebellion against Antipater known as the Lamian War (323–322BC). When Antipater was defeated at the 323BC Battle of Thermopylae, he fled to Lamia where he was besieged by the Athenian commander Leosthenes. A Macedonian army led by Leonnatus rescued Antipater by lifting the siege. Antipater defeated the rebellion, yet his death in 319BC left a power vacuum wherein the two proclaimed kings of Macedonia became pawns in a power struggle between the "diadochi", the former generals of Alexander's army.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: A council of the army convened in Babylon immediately after Alexander's death, naming PhilipIII as king and the chiliarch Perdiccas as his regent. Antipater, Antigonus Monophthalmus, Craterus, and Ptolemy formed a coalition against Perdiccas in a civil war initiated by Ptolemy's seizure of the hearse of Alexander the Great. Perdiccas was assassinated in 321BC by his own officers during a failed campaign in Egypt against Ptolemy, where his march along the Nile River resulted in the drowning of 2,000 of his men. Although Eumenes of Cardia managed to kill Craterus in battle, this had little to no effect on the outcome of the 321BC Partition of Triparadisus in Syria where the victorious coalition settled the issue of a new regency and territorial rights. Antipater was appointed as regent over the two kings. Before Antipater died in 319BC, he named the staunch Argead loyalist Polyperchon as his successor, passing over his own son Cassander and ignoring the right of the king to choose a new regent (since PhilipIII was considered mentally unstable), in effect bypassing the council of the army as well.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Forming an alliance with Ptolemy, Antigonus, and Lysimachus, Cassander had his officer Nicanor capture the Munichia fortress of Athens' port town Piraeus in defiance of Polyperchon's decree that Greek cities should be free of Macedonian garrisons, sparking the Second War of the Diadochi (319–315BC). Given a string of military failures by Polyperchon, in 317BC, PhilipIII, by way of his politically engaged wife Eurydice II of Macedon, officially replaced him as regent with Cassander. Afterwards, Polyperchon desperately sought the aid of Olympias in Epirus. A joint force of Epirotes, Aetolians, and Polyperchon's troops invaded Macedonia and forced the surrender of PhilipIII and Eurydice's army, allowing Olympias to execute the king and force his queen to commit suicide. Olympias then had Nicanor and dozens of other Macedonian nobles killed, but by the spring of 316BC, Cassander had defeated her forces, captured her, and placed her on trial for murder before sentencing her to death.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Cassander married Philip II's daughter Thessalonike and briefly extended Macedonian control into Illyria as far as Epidamnos (modern Durrës, Albania). By 313BC, it was retaken by the Illyrian king Glaucias of Taulantii. By 316BC, Antigonus had taken the territory of Eumenes and managed to eject Seleucus Nicator from his Babylonian satrapy, leading Cassander, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus to issue a joint ultimatum to Antigonus in 315BC for him to surrender various territories in Asia. Antigonus promptly allied with Polyperchon, now based in Corinth, and issued an ultimatum of his own to Cassander, charging him with murder for executing Olympias and demanding that he hand over the royal family, King AlexanderIV and the queen mother Roxana. The conflict that followed lasted until the winter of 312/311BC, when a new peace settlement recognized Cassander as general of Europe, Antigonus as "first in Asia", Ptolemy as general of Egypt, and Lysimachus as general of Thrace. Cassander had AlexanderIV and Roxana put to death in the winter of 311/310BC, and between 306 and 305BC the "diadochi" were declared kings of their respective territories.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The beginning of Hellenistic Greece was defined by the struggle between the Antipatrid dynasty, led first by Cassander (), son of Antipater, and the Antigonid dynasty, led by the Macedonian general Antigonus I Monophthalmus () and his son, the future king DemetriusI (). Cassander besieged Athens in 303BC, but was forced to retreat to Macedonia when Demetrius invaded Boeotia to his rear, attempting to sever his path of retreat. While Antigonus and Demetrius attempted to recreate PhilipII's Hellenic league with themselves as dual hegemons, a revived coalition of Cassander, Ptolemy I Soter () of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty, Seleucus I Nicator () of the Seleucid Empire, and Lysimachus (), King of Thrace, defeated the Antigonids at the Battle of Ipsus in 301BC, killing Antigonus and forcing Demetrius into flight.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Cassander died in 297 BC, and his sickly son PhilipIV died the same year, succeeded by Cassander's other sons Alexander V of Macedon () and Antipater II of Macedon (), with their mother Thessalonike of Macedon acting as regent. While Demetrius fought against the Antipatrid forces in Greece, AntipaterII killed his own mother to obtain power. His desperate brother AlexanderV then requested aid from Pyrrhus of Epirus (), who had fought alongside Demetrius at the Battle of Ipsus, but was sent to Egypt as a hostage as part of an agreement between Demetrius and PtolemyI. In exchange for defeating the forces of AntipaterII and forcing him to flee to the court of Lysimachus in Thrace, Pyrrhus was awarded the westernmost portions of the Macedonian kingdom. Demetrius had his nephew AlexanderV assassinated and was then proclaimed king of Macedonia, but his subjects protested against his aloof, Eastern-style autocracy.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: War broke out between Pyrrhus and Demetrius in 290BC when Lanassa, wife of Pyrrhus, daughter of Agathocles of Syracuse, left him for Demetrius and offered him her dowry of Corcyra. The war dragged on until 288BC, when Demetrius lost the support of the Macedonians and fled the country. Macedonia was then divided between Pyrrhus and Lysimachus, the former taking western Macedonia and the latter eastern Macedonia. By 286BC, Lysimachus had expelled Pyrrhus and his forces from Macedonia. In 282BC, a new war erupted between SeleucusI and Lysimachus; the latter was killed in the Battle of Corupedion, allowing SeleucusI to take control of Thrace and Macedonia. In two dramatic reversals of fortune, SeleucusI was assassinated in 281BC by his officer Ptolemy Keraunos, son of PtolemyI and grandson of Antipater, who was then proclaimed king of Macedonia before being killed in battle in 279BC by Celtic invaders in the Gallic invasion of Greece. The Macedonian army proclaimed the general Sosthenes of Macedon as king, although he apparently refused the title. After defeating the Gallic ruler Bolgios and driving out the raiding party of Brennus, Sosthenes died and left a chaotic situation in Macedonia. The Gallic invaders ravaged Macedonia until Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius, defeated them in Thrace at the 277BC Battle of Lysimachia and was then proclaimed king Antigonus II of Macedon ().


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: In 280 BC, Pyrrhus embarked on a campaign in Magna Graecia (i.e. southern Italy) against the Roman Republic known as the Pyrrhic War, followed by his invasion of Sicily. Ptolemy Keraunos secured his position on the Macedonian throne by giving Pyrrhus five thousand soldiers and twenty war elephants for this endeavor. Pyrrhus returned to Epirus in 275BC after the ultimate failure of both campaigns, which contributed to the rise of Rome because Greek cities in southern Italy such as Tarentum now became Roman allies. Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia in 274BC, defeating the largely mercenary army of AntigonusII at the 274BC Battle of Aous and driving him out of Macedonia, forcing him to seek refuge with his naval fleet in the Aegean.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Pyrrhus lost much of his support among the Macedonians in 273BC when his unruly Gallic mercenaries plundered the royal cemetery of Aigai. Pyrrhus pursued AntigonusII in the Peloponnese, yet AntigonusII was ultimately able to recapture Macedonia. Pyrrhus was killed while besieging Argos in 272BC, allowing AntigonusII to reclaim the rest of Greece. He then restored the Argead dynastic graves at Aigai and annexed the Kingdom of Paeonia.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The Aetolian League hampered AntigonusII's control over central Greece, and the formation of the Achaean League in 251BC pushed Macedonian forces out of much of the Peloponnese and at times incorporated Athens and Sparta. While the Seleucid Empire aligned with Antigonid Macedonia against Ptolemaic Egypt during the Syrian Wars, the Ptolemaic navy heavily disrupted AntigonusII's efforts to control mainland Greece. With the aid of the Ptolemaic navy, the Athenian statesman Chremonides led a revolt against Macedonian authority known as the Chremonidean War (267–261BC). By 265BC, Athens was surrounded and besieged by AntigonusII's forces, and a Ptolemaic fleet was defeated in the Battle of Cos. Athens finally surrendered in 261BC. After Macedonia formed an alliance with the Seleucid ruler Antiochus II, a peace settlement between AntigonusII and Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt was finally struck in 255BC.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: In 251 BC, Aratus of Sicyon led a rebellion against AntigonusII, and in 250BC, PtolemyII declared his support for the self-proclaimed King Alexander of Corinth. Although Alexander died in 246BC and Antigonus was able to score a naval victory against the Ptolemies at Andros, the Macedonians lost the Acrocorinth to the forces of Aratus in 243BC, followed by the induction of Corinth into the Achaean League. AntigonusII made peace with the Achaean League in 240BC, ceding the territories that he had lost in Greece. AntigonusII died in 239BC and was succeeded by his son Demetrius II of Macedon (). Seeking an alliance with Macedonia to defend against the Aetolians, the queen mother and regent of Epirus, Olympias II, offered her daughter Phthia of Macedon to DemetriusII in marriage. Demetrius II accepted her proposal, but he damaged relations with the Seleucids by divorcing Stratonice of Macedon. Although the Aetolians formed an alliance with the Achaean League as a result, DemetriusII was able to invade Boeotia and capture it from the Aetolians by 236BC.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: The Achaean League managed to capture Megalopolis in 235BC, and by the end of DemetriusII's reign most of the Peloponnese except Argos was taken from the Macedonians. DemetriusII also lost an ally in Epirus when the monarchy was toppled in a republican revolution. DemetriusII enlisted the aid of the Illyrian king Agron to defend Acarnania against Aetolia, and in 229BC, they managed to defeat the combined navies of the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues at the Battle of Paxos. Another Illyrian ruler, Longarus of the Dardanian Kingdom, invaded Macedonia and defeated an army of DemetriusII shortly before his death in 229BC. Although his young son Philip immediately inherited the throne, his regent Antigonus III Doson (), nephew of AntigonusII, was proclaimed king by the army, with Philip as his heir, following a string of military victories against the Illyrians in the north and the Aetolians in Thessaly.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Aratus sent an embassy to Antigonus III in 226BC seeking an unexpected alliance now that the reformist king Cleomenes III of Sparta was threatening the rest of Greece in the Cleomenean War (229–222BC). In exchange for military aid, AntigonusIII demanded the return of Corinth to Macedonian control, which Aratus finally agreed to in 225BC. In 224BC, AntigonusIII's forces took Arcadia from Sparta. After forming a Hellenic league in the same vein as PhilipII's League of Corinth, he managed to defeat Sparta at the Battle of Sellasia in 222BC. Sparta was occupied by a foreign power for the first time in its history, restoring Macedonia's position as the leading power in Greece. Antigonus died a year later, perhaps from tuberculosis, leaving behind a strong Hellenistic kingdom for his successor PhilipV.


title: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)

text: Philip V of Macedon () faced immediate challenges to his authority by the Illyrian Dardani and Aetolian League. PhilipV and his allies were successful against the Aetolians and their allies in the Social War (220–217 BC), yet he made peace with the Aetolians once he heard of incursions by the Dardani in the north and the Carthaginian victory over the Romans at the Battle of Lake Trasimene in 217BC. Demetrius of Pharos is alleged to have convinced PhilipV to first secure Illyria in advance of an invasion of the Italian peninsula. In 216BC, PhilipV sent a hundred light warships into the Adriatic Sea to attack Illyria, a move that prompted Scerdilaidas of the Ardiaean Kingdom to appeal to the Romans for aid. Rome responded by sending ten heavy quinqueremes from Roman Sicily to patrol the Illyrian coasts, causing PhilipV to reverse course and order his fleet to retreat, averting open conflict for the time being.