The Age of Alexander By the middle of the 4th century BCE, the Greek world was exhausted. Athens had lost its conglomerate. Sparta’s power had faded. Thebes rose compactly but noway united the fractious megacity- countries. Decades of war had drained their spirit. And also, from the rugged northern land of Macedon, came a youthful man whose ambition would shatter the old order and spread Greek culture from the props of the Aegean to the edges of India. His name was Alexander — son of Philip II of Macedon and within a single generation, he'd change the chart, the language, and indeed the soul of the ancient world. Macedon Before Alexander Before Philip’s rise, the Greeks looked down on Macedonians as half- heathens — rough perambulators with further interest in nags and war