Il discorso del re: Filippo V in Giustino

Philip V of Macedon was the first of the Epigonoi to face Rome. Several modern reconstructions of the actions and the reign of Philip V have approached it largely from a Roman point of view, using as sources Polybius and, where Polybius is lost, Livy. The Polybian historiographical tradition tends to portray Philip V as an enemy and a tyrant, impious and cruel. The Macedonian king was eager to establish a universal and unjust dominion over Greece, Italy, and beyond, and Rome engaged in the first two Macedonian Wars to fight the threat of his growing ambition. Nevertheless, Polybius’ portrayal of Philip V was affected not only by Polybius’ admiration for Roman political structures, military power and overwhelming conquest, but also his personal Achaean origins.
Looking at in book 29 and 30 of Justin’s Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, this paper focuses on the non Polybian tradition on Philip V: this contribution is indeed the first analysis of the Hellenistic approach to the clash between Rome and Macedonia in the 3rd-2nd Century BC. The Epitome shows a considerable diversity of interpretation from the other sources, and reflects very different views of Philip V’s actions that brought him into conflict against Rome. In particular these views are more evident related to the accounts of the peace negotiations of Naupactus and the battle of Cynoscephalae: in the Epitome the king appears as a courageous and skilled warrior, the last of the great Macedonian rulers who fell victim to misfortune. This portrayal, which has several common features with Appian’s fragments of Philip V (Mak. 9), counterbalances the Roman and Achaean standpoint present in Polybius, providing a more Hellenistic perspective that is likely to have been rooted in a historiographical tradition connected to the losing side in the struggle between Rome and the Hellenistic world.