Modern Historians about Macedonia – Richard Gabriel

in Modern Historians / by / on March 15, 2007 at 12:59 pm /

Richard Gabriel ‘Great Captains of Antiquity’ 

 

Quote:

Philip II of Macedonia (382–336 B.C.E.), father of Alexander the Great, unifier of Greece, author of Greece’s first federal constitution, founder of the first territorial state with a centralized administrative structure in Europe, forger of the first Western national army, the first great general of the Greek imperial age, and dreamer of great dreams, was one of the greatest captains in the history of the West

 Page 84

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To understand Philip’s character, it is necessary to understand the land that shaped him. In almost all aspects of cultural life Macedonia was regarded by the Greeks of Philip’s day as a primitive backwater inhabited by semisavage barbarians who spoke a terribly uncouth form of Greek, whose political institutions were tribal to say the least, and whose customs, social values, and sexual practices bordered on the unspeakably depraved. To the degree that city-state Greeks thought about isolated Macedonia at all it was from the perspective of snobbish contempt

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Philip’s “new model army” was the first in Greek history to be structured and trained on rational principles of military science

Page 94

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Philip was the first Greek general to integrate siege operations as a routine part of his army. He also trained his troops to operate in concert with siege operations much as the Assyrians had done

Page 98

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That Philip was disposed by his nature to the practice of war and politics is obvious enough. Even the idea of a pan-Hellenic alliance of Greek states united in a war against Persia had been around since 380 B.C.E. when it was put forth by Isocrates in his Panegyricus. Later, when it was clear that Philip would indeed unite Greece by force of arms, Isocrates, now in his nineties, rewrote the piece under the title of Philippus and commended it to Philip who saw in it the ideological justification for his planned war against the Persians

Page 98

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The Battle of Chaeronea was one of the most important battles in the history of Greece. Philip’s victory and his eventual establishment of a unified Greece marked the end of the city-state and the beginning of the imperial age

page 106

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Want more of this? See these Posts:

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  4. Modern Historians about Macedonia – Peter Tsouras
  5. Modern Historians about Macedonia – Carl J. Richard
Comments
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