Perdiccas III of Macedon

Second son of Amyntas III and Eurydice I, brother of Alexander II (whom he succeeded after the regency of Ptolemy of Aloros) and of the future Philip II. Held the Macedonian throne from c. 365, after killing his predecessor and regent Ptolemy, until late summer 359 when he marched into the upper Macedonian highlands against the Illyrian king Bardylis and was killed in the engagement together with four thousand of his foot (Diod. 16.2.4–5). The defeat opened the Argead succession to his younger brother Philip, who at twenty-three inherited a kingdom on the verge of dissolution — Illyrians in the northwest, Paeonians across the upper Axios, three pretenders backed by Athens, Thrace, and the Chalcidian League — and over the next nine months stabilised it. Perdiccas's infant son Amyntas IV was either kept on as nominal king with Philip as regent (the modern reconstruction) or quietly displaced by acclamation (the version Diodorus presents as direct succession); either way, the practical effect was that Philip ruled, and Amyntas IV survived as a private citizen until executed by Alexander after Philip's death in 336.

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