30. (1.4; DOK 2) Macedonia, under King Phillip and Alexander the Great, able to take control of all of Greece in the 340 s BC because the Persian Empire had soundly defeated Athens and Sparta. a terrible plague had weakened Athens and Sparta. Xerxes was a brilliant commander of the Macedonian army. a long cycle of warfare left all of Greece vulnerable to attack

Macedonia's rise to prominence was significantly influenced by the long-standing conflicts among the Greek city-states. The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) drained resources, divided alliances, and exhausted the cities, particularly Athens and Sparta. This chaos provided a ripe opportunity for King Philip II of Macedon to unite the fractured Greece under his rule, paving the way for his son Alexander to expand the empire further. Additionally, the Persian Wars also played a role in this transition. After the Persian Empire's previous defeats of Athens and Sparta, the latter seemed less capable of mounting a unified defense against an outside force. Philip capitalized on the resulting instability, using a combination of military innovation, strategic alliance-making, and political maneuvering to secure Macedonian dominance over Greece.