Edwyn Robert Bevan

“ But Philip's plans were suddenly blasted by his assassination in the same year during the marriage festival of his daughter at Aegae, the old capital of Macedonia. He left, however, in the Macedonian army a splendid instrument which enabled his son within ten years to change the face of the world.
Philip stands high among the makers of kingdoms. Restless energy, determination, a faculty for animating and organizing a strong people, went with unscrupulous duplicity and a full blooded vehemence in the pleasures of sense. ”

“ Yet Philip was not untouched by ideal considerations, as is proved by the respect, no doubt sincere, which he showed for Hellenic culture, by the forbearance and deference with which he treated Athens, the sacred city of that culture and his mortal foe. A special interest belongs to the Macedonian kingdom as it was shaped by Philip, since it forestalls a system which was not to find the time ripe for it in European history till many centuries later—the national kingdom quickened with the culture developed by the ancient city-states. ”

“ The national kingdoms founded by the Northern races, after the fall of the Roman Empire, under the influence of the classical tradition, are the beginnings of the modern European system; Philip of Macedon foreshadows Theodoric, Charlemagne and William the Conqueror. But this first national kingdom within the sphere of Greek culture could not ultimately live between the surge of the Northern barbarians and the Roman power.
See the authorities under Greece History A vivid and masterly sketch of Philip's personality and work is given in D. G. Hogarth's Philip and Alexander (1897) . ”