Archelaus I of Macedon (died 399 BC) was King of Macedon from 413 to 399 BC, succeeding Perdiccas and preceding Crateuas.
Biography[]
Archelaus was the son of King Perdiccas II of Macedon and a slave woman, and he obtained the throne by murdering his uncle Alcetas II of Macedon, his cousin Alexander, and his 7-year-old half-brother. At the start of his reign in 413 BC, Macedon was allied to Athens during the Peloponnesian War, and he generously supplied the Athenians with timber to rebuild their navy, which had been destroyed at Syracuse during their Sicilian Expedition. Archelaus used this leverage to reassert Macedonian authority in northern Ancient Greece, and he gradually phased Macedon out of the war. He went on to issue an abundance of good-quality coinage, build strongholds, cut straight roads, and improve the organization of the military, and he also moved the capital to Pella and built a new palace there. The Hellenization of Macedon got underway under Archelaus, with the highland kingdom being transformed into a more urbanized society under Archelaus. Pella boasted a massive agora full of exotic products from both the east and west, his royal palace was designed in a Greek style, and he patronized artists such as Euripides at his Athenian-style theaters. He was murdered during a hunt in 399 BC, the result of a homosexual love affair he had with a page at his court. Macedon fell into a six-year interregnum which was tenuously ended by the ascension of Amyntas III of Macedon.