Overview

Philip V of Macedon in Polybius' Histories: Politics, History, and Fiction offers a historiographical and literary study of Polybius' portrait of Philip V and aims to advance our knowledge of both the Macedonian king and the historian. It takes a chronological and thematic approach, exploring how Polybius' political, historiographical, and didactic aims impact the king's depiction from beginning to end. The first half focuses on political and rhetorical aspects: it highlights the embedded Achaean perspective of the narrative and how this fundamentally shapes Philip's image; it re-evaluates key character-defining episodes, such as the sack of Thermum and the attempt on Messene; and it problematizes Polybius' claim that Philip became increasingly treacherous and tyrannical towards the Greeks after 215 BC. The second half explores how Polybius develops his interpretation of the king through ideological and literary means: it investigates how Polybius uses cultural politics to blacken Philip's image and justify the exchange of Macedon and Rome as hegemonic powers in the Greek world; it rationalizes his use of a tragic mode for Philip's last years, examining the implications this styling has for our historical understanding of the king; and it considers how tensions between Polybius' narrative and commentary on Philip may be the result of his combination of historiographical and biographical modes of presentation. It finishes by resituating Philip in the broader context of the Histories, drawing comparisons between his portrait and that of other kings and leaders, and discussing how kings are shaped by and contribute to the arguments in the Histories.

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9780192866769

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Dr Emma Nicholson is a lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter, specializing in Polybius, the Antigonid dynasty, and Rome's entrance into the Greek East. Awarded an AHRC Doctoral Fellowship in 2012, she completed her PhD on Polybius and Philip V at Newcastle University in 2015. After several months as a visiting researcher at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Freiburg University, and the University of Bologna in 2015, she taught at Newcastle (2015-2016) and Edinburgh (2016-2017), before taking up her post at Exeter in 2017. She is the director of Exeter's Centre for Hellenistic Culture and Society, and a director of the Antigonid Network.

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