Imperial cult of ancient Rome cult was the burial and the memorials which any respectable Greek family gave their dead, but paid for by their City in perpetuity. Most heroes were the figures of ancient legend, but some were historical: the Athenians revered Harmodius and Aristogeiton as heroes, as saviours of Athens from tyranny; also, collectively, those who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Statesmen did not generally become heroes, but Sophocles was the hero Dexion ("the Receiver") – not as a playwright, nor a general, but because when the Athenians took Asclepius' cult during the Peloponnesian War, Sophocles housed an image of Asclepius until
Ancient Greek warfare by an autocratic king, and importantly, covering a larger area. Once firmly unified, and then expanded, by Phillip II, Macedon possessed the resources that enabled it to dominate the weakened and divided states in southern Greece. Between 356 and 342 BC Phillip conquered all city states in the vicinity of Macedon, then Thessaly and then Thrace. Finally Phillip sought to establish his own hegemony over the southern Greek city-states, and after defeating the combined forces of Athens and Thebes, the two most powerful states, at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, succeeded. Now unable to resist him, Phillip compelled