Philip II of Macedon

“ Poor Demosthenes, who had never been in a battle before, and could only fight with his tongue, fled in such a fright that when a bramble caught his tunic, he screamed out, “Oh, spare my life!” The battle of Chæronea was a most terrible overthrow, and neither Athens nor Thebes ever recovered it. Macedon entirely gained the chief power over Greece, and Philip was the chief man in it, though Demosthenes never ceased to try to stir up opposition to him. Philip was a very able man, and had a good deal of nobleness in his nature. ”

“ Philip, King of Macedon, determined to subvert the liberties of all the Grecian republics. To him, as to European sovereigns of to-day, a representative form of government was hateful, as would have been the liberty of the press, had there been a press in those days. It was one of his favorite maxims that "no fortification was impregnable into which a mule could make its way with a bag of money!" as it was a maxim with the first Napoleon that "every man has his price?" In pursuance of this policy, Philip had his bribed emissaries in Thebes, as he had at Athens and Sparta. ”

“ The partisans of Macedon and the supporters of the peace were thrust into the background; the Hellenic alliance received new members and adherents. Philip’s consideration was manifestly on the wane, the more as during this time he was with his army in the distant regions of the Danube. For in order to compensate his troops for their fruitless toil by means of a raiding expedition and restore his military reputation by a brilliant feat, Philip led his army from Byzantium against the Scythians on the Lower Danube. ”

“ The war against Philip and the Macedonians fell to Titus by lot, and some kind fortune, propitious at that time to the Romans, seems to have so determined it; as neither the people nor the state of things which were now to be dealt with, were such as to require a general who would always be upon the point of force and mere blows, but rather were accessible to persuasion and gentle usage. It is true that the kingdom of Macedon furnished supplies enough to Philip for actual battle with the Romans; but to maintain a long and lingering war, he must call in aid from Greece ”

“ Mac ́e-don, Philip's country, was north of Greece, and its rulers spoke Greek and were of Greek descent; but, as the people of Macedon were not of the same race, the Greeks did not like them, and never allowed them to send any one to the Amphictyonic Council.
Two years after the battle of Mantinea, when Philip was eighteen years old, he suddenly learned that the king, his brother, was dead, and had left an infant to take his place. Philip knew that a child could not govern: so he escaped from Thebes, where he was not very closely watched, and made his way to Macedon. ”

“ Why should we be his only enemies? Although I might make this assertion, that so great have been our obligations to the former kings of Macedon, that the ill usage, suffered from a single prince of their line, if any has really been suffered from Philip, * * * especially after his death. When a Roman fleet was lying at Cenchreæ, and the consul, with his army, was at Elatia, we were three days in council, deliberating whether we should follow the Romans or Philip. ”

“ Philip of Macedon, not the father of Alexander the Great, but he who was conquered by Titus Quintius, had not much territory compared to the greatness of the Romans and of Greece who attacked him, yet being a warlike man who knew how to attract the people and secure the nobles, he sustained the war against his enemies for many years, and if in the end he lost the dominion of some cities, nevertheless he retained the kingdom. ”

“ Of all the cities, Athens had the ablest men, and Sparta the most hardy; and these two had been the foremost in beating and turning back the great Persian armies of Darius and Xerxes; but since that time there had been quarrels between these two powers, and they grew weak, so that Philip, King of Macedon, who had a kingdom to the north of them, and was but half a real Greek, contrived to conquer them all, and make them his subjects.
The ensign of Macedon was a he-goat, the rough goat that Daniel had seen in his vision ”

“ The course of events in other parts of Greece and in the barbarian kingdom of Macedon seemed all to be converging to one inevitable result,—the extinction of Hellenic freedom. When a nation or a race becomes unfit to possess longer the most precious of heritages, a free and honorable place among nations, then the time and the occasion and the man will not be long wanting to co-operate with the internal subversive force in consummating the final catastrophe. "If Philip should die," said Demosthenes, "the Athenians would quickly make themselves another Philip." ”

“ A very short time after the marriage, Ptolemy was born. Philip treated the child with the same consideration and favor that he had evinced toward the mother. The boy was called the son of Lagus, but his position in the royal court of Macedon was as high and honorable, and the attentions which he received were as great, as he could have expected to enjoy if he had been in reality a son of the king. As he grew up, he attained to official stations of considerable responsibility and power. ”

“ To one who seldom heard the truth this language seemed too bold to address to a king. "Your youth, your good looks and, above all, the fact of your being a Roman make you too venturesome. It is my wish that you should remember treaty obligations and keep the peace with me, but if you begin the attack, I too am quite ready to fight, and you will find the kingdom and name of Macedon no less renowned in war than those of Rome." After dismissing thus the envoy Philip took possession of the gold and silver which had been collected, but he lost all chance of making prisoners. ”

“ There was now a kind of balance of power between the three leading States, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, no one of which was greatly stronger than the others; and such a balance could easily be worked upon by any great power from without. Thus when Macedon came into the range of Greek politics, under a man of great diplomatic as well as military capacity, who, like a Czar of to-day, wished to secure a firm footing on the sea-board of the Ægean [see GREECE: B. C. 359-358] , she found her work comparatively easy. The strong imperial policy of Philip found no real antagonist except at Athens. ”

“ The Macedonian monarchy clung to Greece like the shirt of Nessus. Though they had been compelled to renounce Alexander’s heritage the kings of Macedon were still the heirs of Philip and determined to continue his work of subjugating Greece. This policy was persistently followed by Antigonus Gonatas, who bequeathed it to his successors. After the death of Pyrrhus he had no competitors for the throne of Macedon. The greater part of the army of the king of Epirus was composed of Macedonians and Galatæ who passed without difficulty into Antigonus’ service. ”

“ When one or more of these great powers had a party purpose to accomplish against others—when Philip of Macedon wished to extrude one of the members in order to procure admission for himself—it became convenient to turn this ancient form into a serious reality; and we shall see the Athenian Æschines providing a pretext for Philip to meddle in favor of the minor Boeotian cities against Thebes, by alleging that these cities were under the protection of the old Amphictyonic oath. ”

“ Thus at the very moment, when everything turned upon Philip’s goodwill being won, a pretender, who gave himself out to be a descendant of Alexander the Great, and who had been with the Acarnanians in Epirus, was received at Ephesus as the rightful sovereign of Macedon: they even fostered the fond hope of bringing about a revolution there. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ After subduing Thermopylæ and the Phocians, Philip quickly apprehended that you could not be induced by any selfish considerations to abandon other Greek states to him. The Thebans, Messenians, and Argives he lured by bribes. But he knew how, in the past, your predecessors scorned the overtures of his ancestor, Alexander of Macedon, sent by Mardonius the Persian to induce the Athenians to betray the rest of the Greeks. It was not so with the Argives and the Thebans, and thus Philip calculates that their successors will care nothing for the interests of the Greeks generally. ”

“ A few years before his death, however, he brought his two sons, Wamsutta and Pometacom, to Plymouth, and requested the governor, in token of friendship, to give them English names. They were very bright, attractive young men, of the finest physical development. The governor related to Massasoit the history of the renowned kings of Macedon, Philip and Alexander, and gave to Wamsutta, the oldest, the name of Alexander, the great warrior of Asia, and to Pometacom, the younger, the less renowned name of Philip. These two young men had married sisters, the daughters of the sachem of Pocasset. ”

“ The latter now turned their attention to Greece (211 B.C.) , and contrived to keep Philip busy at home by inciting a violation of the recent treaty with the Ætolians, and by inducing Sparta and Elis to unite in a war against Macedon. Philip was for a time supported by the Achæans, under their renowned leader Philopoe'men; but Athens, which Philip had besieged, called in the aid of a Roman fleet (199 B.C.) , and finally the Achæans themselves, being divided into factions, accepted terms of peace with the Romans. ”

“ The Amphictyonic league declares a “holy war” against Amphissa, and requests the aid of Philip. Philip destroys Amphissa and conquers Naupactus. Philip occupies Elatea. Athens makes alliance with Thebes. Battle of Chæronea. Philip defeats the Athenians and Thebans. The hegemony of Greece passes to Macedon. Philip invades the Peloponnesus which, with the exception of Sparta, acknowledges his supremacy. Philip establishes a Greek confederacy under the Macedonian hegemony. Lycurgus appointed to control the public revenues in Athens. ”

“ After the battle of Cheronea, Philip, contrary to expectation, did not prosecute hostilities against Athens; on the contrary, he used his best endeavors to conciliate the affections of the people, but without success; the party hostile to Macedon soon regained the superiority, and Demosthenes was proceeding with his usual vigor in the prosecution of his political schemes, when news arrived of the murder of Philip, in July, 336. ”

“ Three years ago you decided on this very spot to make peace with Philip. You are the same men that you were then, he is the same that he was, the Romans who were opposed to it then are just those who want to upset it now. Fortune has altered nothing, I do not see why you should alter your minds."
30 The Macedonians were followed, at the instance of the Romans, by the Athenians, who after the shocking way they had been treated, had every justification for protesting against Philip's barbarous cruelty. ”

“ Though he had not held his own against Attalus and the Rhodians he was not alarmed even at the prospect of a war with Rome. Philocles, one of his generals, was sent with a force of 2000 infantry and 200 cavalry to ravage the lands of the Athenians, and Heraclides was placed in charge of the fleet with instructions to sail for Maronea. Philip himself marched thither overland with 2000 men in light marching order, and took the place at the first assault. ”

“ If to-day, after the lapse of three centuries, we look back upon that career, our admiration for William of Orange grows steadily. We follow him from his first appearance on the public stage of the Netherlands, as a friend and confidant of Charles the Fifth, as a loyal adviser of the Duchess Regent, as a loyal subject pleading with Philip the Second and warning him to respect the rights of citizenship and religion of the Netherlanders,—pleading and warning in vain ”

“ In such a city he would at least have a good opportunity of getting an insight into the character of Greek politics, and he might have early learnt some of those weak points in Greece which his adroitness subsequently enabled him to turn to such profitable account.
Philip, after his victories over the Illyrians and Pæonians, which for a time at least made Macedonia secure on the land side, still reigned over a poor and half-barbarous kingdom. He had much to do before he could hope to become a considerable power in the Greek world. ”

“ The revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule, of which the Prince of Orange was the principal figure, originated in religious{112} conflicts between the Netherlanders—most of whom were Calvinists or Lutherans—and the bigoted King of Spain, Philip the Second, who was more Catholic than the Pope himself. It was one of the fixed ideas of Philip the Second, a perfect monomania, that in the immense empire over which he ruled, none but faithful believers in the Catholic faith should be tolerated, and that all heretics or dissidents should be exterminated with fire and sword. ”