Philip V of Macedon in Polybius’ Histories: Politics, History, & Fiction

Emma Nicholson, Philip V of Macedon in Polybius’ Histories: Politics, History, & Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023). 9780192866769.

Reviewed by Aaron L. Beek, Case Western Reserve University and North-West University,
aaronlbeek@gmail.com.

This work is a detailed examination of the Polybian view of Philip V of Macedon. One might readily ask whether this is a work about Polybius or about Philip, surely a tricky line to walk, as the historian is by far the most important source for what we know of the king. In her introduction, Nicholson offers a masterful summation of what we glean from Livy, Plutarch, Diodorus, and Justin, as well as insightful commentary on the epigraphic and numismatic record (pp. 7–13). Yet, the book returns again and again to Polybius and his method, and those readers looking for scholarship on Polybius should not overlook this text because of its focus on Philip. It is also a dense, well-footnoted (over 800) text.

Nicholson’s approach details the evolution of Philip from benevolent and beloved prince to tyrannical and paranoid king but cautions the reader that this progression is a mixture of reality and representation. She also points out that the trajectory of Philip’s moral character in Polybius is almost reversed in Plutarch, with the scheming ruler in the Aratus becoming reformed by Aemilius in the Aemilius. The flash and pomp of the Hellenistic royal—despite being popular enough in third-century Hellenistic society—would not be well respected by writers who preferred the somewhat performative austerity of the Achaeans and Spartans. 

In chapter one, Nicholson makes the compelling argument that to understand Polybius and his historiography we must understand the Achaean League of the late third century and of Aratus in particular.1 Polybius makes an intentional turn into what he calls pragmatic history, which lends a certain selectivity regarding the events he chooses to detail. For all the bulk of the Histories, Polybius is known to omit accounts that clash with what he regards as good examples of statesmanship. More debatable is the question of whether Polybius falsifies accounts or knowingly sides with false accounts in service of the lesson he intends to impart upon the reader. Philip himself is largely left to the next chapter, while this one closes by describing the uneasy alliance between the Achaeans and Macedonians against the Spartans, foreshadowing how Polybius would view the breakdown of the alliance as Macedonian treachery. 

The young Philip V, taking the throne at seventeen, was known as the eromenos of the Greeks—and this serves as the principal topic of Nicholson’s second chapter, which rests upon the events at Thermum (in 218 BCE) and Messene (in 215 BCE) as turning points for the character of Philip. Polybius praised Antigonus Doson (Philip’s predecessor and great-uncle) for his pro-Achaean policy, foreshadowing a future critique of Philip for his reversals. Little attention is paid here to the events of the campaign in the Peloponnese and Aetolia from 224–218 BCE (but they are treated in detail in chapter 3, pp. 107–20). Polybius uses Thermum as a teaching point in “going beyond the normal conventions of war” (pp. 63, 65; cf. Polyb. 5.9.1), and Nicholson thus discusses those conventions and retaliation. Polybius views Philip’s acts (sacking the Aetolian temples) as irredeemably sacrilegious, while Nicholson points out the constraints upon Philip at the time both to punish the Aetolians somehow for their sacrilege and to prove his competence to his allies. While Polybius allows some leeway for bad advice at Thermum, Philip’s choice not to intervene in the massacre at Messene in 215 BCE cements his status as a tyrannical king.2 The role of Demetrius of Pharos as the bad advisor as foil to the good advice of Aratus rounds out this chapter.

In chapter three, Nicholson turns to evaluating Philip’s general conduct towards his Greek allies after 215 BCE. As already noted, Polybius paints an increasingly hostile picture of Philip as goal-oriented and treacherous. Nicholson observes that most of the betrayals Polybius records are of states not allied to Philip in the first place, while the alliance network he inherited from Antigonus generally benefitted from his leadership; the epigraphic record shows no difference. Philip’s election as leader of the Cretan League and as president of the Nemean games likewise suggest a genuine popularity beyond Macedon alone. In the first Macedonian war, Nicholson presents Philip as seeking first to defend his Acarnanian allies and second to reduce Aetolia. Macedonian abandonment of its allies during the Second Macedonian War is here taken as a sign of Philip’s inability to aid them rather than intentional dereliction. Philip’s alliance with the allegedly piratical Cretans in their conflict with Rhodes has been critiqued by pro-Rhodian accounts that have been accepted too readily by modern scholars. Why should Philip’s allies stay so closely attached to Philip if Polybius is correct about his fundamental trustworthiness? One might fairly say that Polybius critiques Philip for holding a different attitude concerning the duties of kingship, while Philip remains fairly true to what he himself considers the duties of kingship. All in all, a very interesting chapter that reminds us to take stock of the aims and biases of both our writers and their subjects. Some judgments reflect philosophical disagreements rather than objective historical error.

Chapter four examines Philip’s relationship with Rome and how this relationship matters to Polybius. Overall, this chapter is fairly indebted to Champion’s 2004 book.3 To some extent, Polybius (and Livy!) lionizes Philip’s military abilities to emphasize Roman strength, especially in organization. In describing an Aegean world where most cities felt pressured to side with Macedon or Rome, it comes as little surprise that Polybius records Rome as the “correct” choice. Nicholson carefully explains the diplomatic difficulty of the choice between the barbaric republic and the heavy-handed monarchy without getting trapped in essentializing. The letters and speeches examined reveal a split between two powers each with compelling reasons and each with an outstretched hand of friendship. Nicholson’s particular contribution to the discussion of Walbank, Eckstein, and Champion is a thought-provoking analysis of how Philip sought to represent himself to the Aegean.4 Nicholson also highlights that Rome’s conflicts with Philip did not come at a time of already-waning Macedonian power. 

In chapter 5, Nicholson explains how Polybius constructs the end of Philip’s life as something of a comeuppance. For the end of Philip’s life, we are beholden to Livy more than Polybius. While Polybius casts the king as preparing for future conflict with Rome, Nicholson offers a partial deflection, noting that Philip at no time actually prepares for war against Rome, but rather only strengthens Macedon by expansion in other directions (principally Thrace). It is a leap, albeit a small one, for Polybius and modern scholars to assume Philip was intent upon a new offensive campaign against the Romans. As Nicholson infers, Philip’s plans seem impossible to recover, and Polybius’s depiction seems plausible but uncertain. Nicholson then turns to Polybius’s use of the poetic forms of tragedy to describe Philip’s life. The chapter spends relatively little time on what others might consider the great tragic episode of Philip’s last days, the scheming of his sons, resulting in the execution of his heir and the legitimization of Perseus.

The sixth chapter deals with the differences of biography and history and how Polybius does not construe his history as a biography, even if dominated at times by Hannibals, Scipios, and Philips. Nevertheless, he has biographical tendencies. Here Nicholson includes a particularly interesting comparison of the narrative arcs of Philip V and Antiochus III, followed by an analysis of Polybius’s somewhat contemptuous regard for the next generation of Hellenistic kings (Perseus, Eumenes II, Ptolemy V, Antiochus IV). The book closes with an analysis of Hannibal and Philip as commanders, though I would certainly quibble with the statement that “Hannibal only had a limited connection with the Greek world” (p. 323), which seems hardly applicable to someone who read Greek literature, spent so many years in Magna Graecia, spoke Greek, and later moved to the court of Antiochus. I was also not entirely convinced regarding Ptolemy IV, whose account in Polybius seems to me to exhibit the same sort of negative exemplarity Polybius uses for Philip’s errors. Nicholson observes that Polybius consistently presents the best men of a generation as stemming from non-monarchic states, which in turn supports his view on constitutions just a touch too neatly.

I like this book. I find it occasionally too enmired in the debates of Polybian historiography, and it exhibits many of the hallmarks of the thesis-to-book conversion. This conversion does seem to me to be a marked expansion not just in content but also readability and organization from Nicholson’s 2016 thesis. Post 2015-scholarship has been abundantly consulted, and the text appears very much overhauled throughout.

A minor critique is that sometimes Nicholson describes events in a near-paraphrase of Polybius’s narrative, tacitly affirming his account. I also have some reservations about how accessible this book may be for those who are not already classical historians. Nicholson makes a very reasonable point (p. 31) that there is no space to examine the Achaean League in detail. But I think a few quick definitions and chronological signposts would help remind readers when the Cleomenean War was or when minor third-century Peloponnesian politicians like Lydiadas of Megalopolis and Aristomachus of Argos held power in their respective cities (noted later, but not at first mention). Nicholson’s frequent references to Tyche, anakyklosis, Hellenism, and Scipio’s career, for example, certainly presuppose a more than passing familiarity with Polybius, Livy, and scholarship upon them. But as a work for specialists, it is an interesting one, which I greatly enjoyed.

Table of Contents

Introduction (1–26)
1. Constructing Macedon and the World through an Achaean Perspective (27–58)
2. The Darling of the Greeks Turns into a Tyrant (59–100)
3. Philip V and his Greek Allies (101–63)
4. Philip and the Romans (164–227)
5. A Tragic King (228–66)
6. Woven History, Woven Lives (267–327)
Conclusion (328–35)

Discussion

1. In chapter 6, during your discussion of character portraits, you address Hellenistic monarchies. Do you believe Macedonian subjects held a different set of expectations for the Antigonids than the expectations for other Hellenistic monarchs, such as the Attalids, Seleucids, or Ptolemies? What differences are there for Polybius and Philip in the definitions of or the expectations for a good monarch?

Yes, to a degree Macedonian subjects were likely to have held different expectations of the Antigonids from those held by subjects of the Attalids, Ptolemies, or Seleucids, as different peoples had different understandings of kingship. Although any answer must also be qualified by period and which group of subjects we are talking about. The expectations of the king’s philoi, the army, local elites, and the wider population were not identical, and the evidence is much better for elite groups than for others.

At a broad level, the Hellenistic monarchies shared certain assumptions inherited from their Macedonian origins. Royal companions, the nobility, and the army expected military success, the display and acquisition of wealth, and the king’s ability to reward loyalty with gifts, offices, and status. Over time, however, the Ptolemaic and Seleucid monarchies became more deeply embedded in their local institutional and cultural traditions, while the Antigonid kingdom remained closer to older Macedonian models of kingship. The Antigonid king was still expected to be, at least ideologically, more accessible and more recognisably a king of the Macedonians rather than a more distant sacral ruler. Demetrius Poliorketes’ arrogance, inaccessibility, and irresponsibility (Plut. Dem. 42–43), for example, were remembered negatively. Macedonian kingship also continued to rest heavily on military leadership, reciprocity with the elite, and recognition by the army and nobility. Even by the time of Philip V, when monarchy was more institutionalised, the king’s legitimacy still depended to an unusual degree on his effectiveness as a commander, protector, and distributor of honour and reward. Ruler cult also seems to have been less central in Macedonia than in some other Hellenistic kingdoms, which suggests a different ideological frame for kingship.

Macedonian expectations were different to those of the Greeks, however. The latter did not want to be ruled by kings, and particularly foreign ones, and their relations with the different Hellenistic monarchs were often fraught, temporary, and based on negotiation. Polybius, as a Greek statesman, evaluated kingship from the perspective of the Greek civic world: the good ruler was expected to show restraint, justice, piety, and respect for the autonomy and dignity of Greek communities. Philip, by contrast, had to satisfy expectations rooted in Macedonian power structures and priorities: military success, defence of Macedonian interests, vengeance against enemies, and the maintenance and expansion of power, prestige, and material gain. The sack of Thermum (Plb. 5.9–12) illustrates this different point of view. Polybius presents it as morally excessive and unworthy of a good ruler. Yet from a Macedonian perspective it was legitimate retaliation for Aetolian attacks on Dion and Dodona, as well as a demonstration of strength, piety, and care for Macedonian honour as would be expected of an effective king. The disagreement, then, is not simply between morality and expediency, but between two political standpoints with different assumptions about what good kingship required.

2. Could you discuss the concept of the philosopher-king in the Hellenistic period? Which philosophers or teachers had an impact on Philip V? What are the contemporary influences on his thinking? Who is Philip talking to or reacting to?

Here the evidence is much thinner, so I will answer cautiously. The idea of the “philosopher-king” certainly continued in the Hellenistic world, but usually not in the strict Platonic sense of a ruler who was himself a philosopher. What we see instead is a broader discourse of ethical kingship: numerous treatises On Kingship (Peri basileias) circulated, and they typically set out the virtues expected of an ideal ruler – wisdom, justice, self-control, benefaction, and military competence. Hellenistic courts also patronised philosophers, so philosophy and monarchy were closely associated even where rulers were not “philosopher-kings” in a strict sense. 

The Antigonid dynasty certainly participated in that culture. Antigonus Gonatas is the clearest example: Diogenes Laertius says that Antigonus regularly heard Zeno lecture and repeatedly invited him to court; Zeno declined to go in person but sent Persaeus and Philonides instead. Persaeus later wrote on kingship and served the dynasty (he was tutor to one of Gonatas’s sons, Halcyoneus), which suggests that philosophical discourse could be used to shape royal self-presentation at the Antigonid court (Diog. Laert. 7.1.6–15, 36). 

When we turn to Philip V, however, the evidence becomes much less secure. I do not think we can identify any philosopher or philosophical school that shaped his thinking. The only influential figures we can identify with any confidence in our surviving sources are political advisers. Polybius repeatedly contrasts the advice of Aratus of Sicyon with that of Demetrius of Pharos: at Messene, for example, Demetrius urges Philip to hold the citadel opportunistically, whereas Aratus urges him to preserve good faith with the allies (Plb. 7.12-14). Polybius makes that contrast central to Philip’s development, and Plutarch goes even further by describing Aratus as a kind of guardian and tutor for Philip’s kingship (Plut. Arat. 46.3, 47.3-5).

If we ask who Philip is talking or reacting to, the answer seems to be: his court, Greek allies, rival rulers, and increasingly Rome. Early on, Apelles, Alexander, Chrysogonus, Aratus, and Demetrius of Pharos are the key interlocutors in our literary tradition; later, the evidence is patchier, but the unpopular Heracleides of Tarentum seems to have exercised considerable influence between 209–199/8 (Plb. 13.4–5; Diod. 28.2, 9; Livy 32.5). Rome also became an increasingly important point of reference—Philip’s second letter to Larissa (Syll³ 543 = IG IX 2, 517) explicitly cites Roman practice in the enrolment of citizens as an example worth learning from, and Polybius also knew of a letter from Scipio discussing his operations in Spain and the capture of New Carthage sent to Philip (Plb. 10.9.3). The evidence suggests a ruler shaped less by philosophical doctrine than by dynastic precedent, court politics, and the pressures of interstate competition.

3. You imply that Polybius put his thumb on the scales a bit in the constitutional debate regarding his historic examples showing the relative merits of democracy and monarchy. Aside from noting the anacyclosis has few real examples, do you think that modern scholars have been too comfortable with Polybius’s conclusions to critique his methods?       

I would not say that modern scholars have been too comfortable with Polybius’s conclusions in any simple sense, since book 6 has long attracted criticism and debate. As F. W. Walbank argued long ago,5 there are serious contradictions in Polybius’s constitutional theory, and more recent scholars have continued to question the relationship between anacyclosis, the mixed constitution, and Rome’s supposed exceptionalism. Robin Seager, for example, has argued that Polybius’ presentation of the Roman constitution involves significant “distortions,” since he is committed in advance both to Rome’s success and to the superiority of the mixed constitution.6

That said, I do think there is still room to press the critique of Polybius’ method more explicitly. Craige Champion has shown that Polybius’ highly negative treatment of Athenian democracy in book 6 does not sit entirely comfortably with his more admiring presentation of Athenian diplomacy elsewhere in the Histories,7 which suggests that his historical examples are framed argumentatively rather than neutrally. As I have argued in this volume and elsewhere, the same point can be extended beyond Athens and Rome: book 6 is not simply a detached constitutional excursus but a framework that also intersects with Polybius’s wider narrative construction of Macedon and Philip V. In that respect, the constitutional debate is doing ideological as well as analytical work, helping Polybius explain not just Roman success but also Macedonian decline.

My view, then, is not that scholarship has been insufficiently critical overall, but that Polybius’s prestige as a constitutional thinker has sometimes encouraged readers to smooth over how selective, rhetorical, and programmatic his procedure actually is. Modern scholarship has certainly exposed many of the tensions; the next step is to keep reading book 6 less as neutral constitutional theory and more as a crafted historiographical piece.

4. As a shift, I want to ask about the thesis to book conversion. This seems to be a significant revision. What new contributions or insight have you gained in the continuation of this research project? What didn’t make the cut for the book? 

The book is the result of a substantial expansion and rethinking of the original thesis. The thesis itself contained only the material that became chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 in embryonic form, and its introduction and conclusion reflected a much narrower study. In turning it into a monograph, I added two entirely new and sizeable chapters—chapter 4, “Philip and the Romans,” and chapter 6, “Woven History, Woven Lives”—and revised the earlier material extensively in light of newer scholarship, additional epigraphic evidence, and a broader historiographical framework. In that process, some arguments became fuller, but also tighter: one of the most important lessons was learning to be more concise.

The most significant new insight came from widening the frame. Chapter 4 confirmed for me that Polybius’s depiction of Philip cannot be understood in isolation from his depiction of Rome. Rome is not simply part of Philip’s story but also central to the historiographical and ideological presentation of the king in the Histories. Exploring that relationship sharpened my sense of how Polybius constructs the Macedonian Wars not only as events but as part of a larger narrative that explains and legitimises a transfer of hegemonic power. That, in turn, helped prepare the ground for chapter 5 and its treatment of the increasingly tragic shape of Philip’s portrayal, as well as the turn to historiographical considerations. Chapter 6 similarly grew out of the realisation that Philip’s portrait becomes clearer when read alongside Polybius’s wider handling of character, leadership, and narrative design. By comparing Philip’s depiction with that of figures such as Philip II, Alexander the Great, Ptolemy IV, Antiochus III, Perseus, and Hannibal, I was able to see more clearly the broader patterns of literary construction, Polybius’s views on kingship, his interest in moral and political exemplarity, and his engagement with biography as part of his historiographical method. The revised book, therefore, moves beyond the original thesis not simply by adding material, but by offering a more integrated account of Philip’s portrayal across the Histories, one that places characterisation, historiography, and the wider political narrative in closer dialogue.

As for what did not make the cut, the most obvious examples are material on Aratus’s portrayal and relationship with Lydiadas and Cleomenes in the Histories and other traditions (Phylarchus, Plutarch) as well as a fuller discussion of Polybius’s phrase “universal eromenos of the Greeks” (7.11.8); both ultimately developed into separate articles. I also cut sections on Felix Maier’s work on contingency in Polybius8 and a more detailed discussion of scholarship on universal history, which were too long, and a section in chapter 5 on Philip’s attitude towards Italy and possible ambitions of universal rule, which I ultimately found less convincing. 

Since the conversion took seven years, during which time I also navigated the pandemic, developed the Antigonid Network, and taught on the subject, the process was also a reminder that a book is never simply a thesis made longer but a different intellectual object shaped as much by omission and rethinking as by addition.

Notes

1. I might argue a discussion of Philopoemon belongs in this chapter, but treatment in chapter 6 covers this ground.

2. This section evokes the anakyklosis discussion of book six and Polybius seems to imply the evolution of the (good) monarchy to (bad) tyranny within Philip’s rule. This is hinted at here and stated more explicitly in chapter 4 (pp. 194–95).

3. Craige Champion, Cultural Politics in Polybius’s Histories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

4. Arthur M. Eckstein, Moral Vision in the Histories of Polybius (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). F. W. Walbank, Polybius (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

5. “Polybius on the Roman Constitution,” Classical Quarterly 37, no. 3/4 (1943): 73–89.

6. “Polybius’ Distortions of the Roman ‘Constitution’: A Simpl(istic) Explanation,” in Polybius & His World: Essays in Memory of F. W. Walkbank, ed. B. Gibson and T. Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 247–54.

7. “Polybius on ‘Classical Athenian Imperial Democracy,’” in The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought, ed. M. Canevaro and B. Gray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 123–38.

8. “Überall mit dem Unerwarteten rechnen.” In Die Kontingenz historischer Prozesse bei Polybios (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2012).