Antigonid Macedon in 218 B.C.

Antigonid Macedon — Spring 218 BC · The Social War.

The kingdom of Macedonia under the young Philip V — heir of Alexander’s homeland, master of the sarissa phalanx, and hegemon of the Hellenic Symmachy that binds much of Greece to his lead. In 218 he is at the height of his early promise, waging the Social War against the Aetolians and holding the Greek south in check through three great fortresses men call the Fetters of Greece. Beyond the Aegean a storm is rising — Hannibal’s war with Rome — and it will soon draw Philip west.

Philip V came to the throne at seventeen in 221 and has dazzled Greece — brave, charming and tireless, "the darling of Hellas." At the head of the Symmachy founded by Antigonus Doson he wages the Social War (220–217) against the Aetolian League, storming across Greece from Cephallenia to the Peloponnese. He holds Corinth, Chalcis and Demetrias — the fetters that keep Greece in hand. But when news of Lake Trasimene reaches him in 217 he will make peace and turn his gaze toward Illyria and Italy, and a reckoning with Rome.