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The Last Kings of Macedonia and the Triumph of Rome provides a chronicle of the last three kings of Macedonia: Philip V (r. 221-179), his son Perseus (r. 179-168), and the pretender Andriscus or Philip VI (r. 149-148). Far from being a mere postscript to Macedonia's Classical greatness or collateral damage in Rome's ascendancy in the east, Philip and Perseus should be remembered for heroically striving to preserve their kingdom's independence against staggering odds.
List of contents
- Preface
- Figures
- Abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction: We Three Kings
- 1. The Kingdom of Macedonia
- 2. Introducing Philip V
- 3. The Social War
- 4. Taking on Rome
- 5. From the First to the Second Macedonian Wars
- 6. The Second Macedonian War
- 7. Fall of the Phalanx
- 8. Macedonia Renascent
- 9. Perseus: Last of the Antigonids
- 10. The Third Macedonian War
- 11. Dismembering Macedonia
- 12. Provincia Macedonia
- Appendix: "Fake News:" The Sources on Philip V and Perseus
- Bibliography, Index
About the author
Ian Worthington is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University. His many publications include Athens after Empire, Ptolemy I, By the Spear, and Demosthenes of Athens and the Fall of Classical Greece. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of Brill's New Jacoby since 2003, and in 2019 and 2020 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (London) and the Society of Antiquaries (London), respectively.
Summary
In the history of ancient Macedonia, the last three Antigonid kings--Philip V (r. 221-179), his son Perseus (r. 179-168), and the pretender Andriscus or Philip VI (r. 149-148)--are commonly overlooked in favor of their predecessors Philip II (r. 359-336) and his son Alexander the Great (r. 336-323), who established a Macedonian empire. By the time Philip V became king, Macedonia was no longer an imperial power and Rome was fast spreading its dominance over the Mediterranean. Viewed as postscripts to the kingdom's heyday, the last Macedonian kings are often denounced for self-serving ambitions, flawed policies, and questionable personal qualities by hostile ancient writers. They are condemned for defeats by Rome that saw both the end of the monarchy and the fall of the formidable Macedonian phalanx before the Roman legion.
In The Last Kings of Macedonia and the Triumph of Rome, Ian Worthington reassesses these three kings and demonstrates how such denunciations are inaccurate. Producing the first full-scale treatment of Philip V in eighty years and the first in English of Perseus and Andriscus in more than fifty, Worthington argues that this period was far from a postscript to Macedonia's Classical greatness and disagrees that the last Antigonid kings were merely collateral damage in Rome's ascendancy in the east. Despite superior Roman manpower and resources, Philip and Perseus often had the upper hand in their wars against Rome. As Worthington asserts, these kings deserve to be remembered for striving to preserve their kingdom's independence against staggering odds.
Additional text
[The book] may be enjoyed by a general audience, but also profitably read by undergraduates as a scholarly introduction and graduate students as a brisk refresher to one of the most important, if doomed, dynasties of the Hellenistic world.
