time one of the most arrogant and flagitious
characters, which that shameless age produced. He was in the habit of
saying that he feared none save the gods; but it seemed almost as if
his gods were those to whom his admiral Dicaearchus regularly offered
sacrifice--Godlessness (-Asebeia-) and Lawlessness (-Paranomia-). The
lives of his advisers and of the promoters of his schemes possessed no
sacredness in his eyes, nor did he disdain to pacify his indignation
against the Athenians and Attalus by the destruction of venerable
monuments and illustrious works of art; it is quoted as one of his
maxims of state, that "whoever causes the father to be put to death
must also kill the sons." It may be that to him cruelty was not,
strictly, a delight; but he was indifferent to the lives and
sufferings of others, and relenting, which alone renders men
tolerable, found no place in his hard and stubborn heart. So abruptly
and harshly did he proclaim the principle that no promise and no moral
law are binding on an absolute king, that he thereby interposed the
most serious obstacles to the success of his plans. No one can deny
that he possessed sagacity and resolution, but these were, in a
singular manner, combined with procrastination and supineness; which
is perhaps partly to be explained by the fact, that he was called in
his eighteenth year to the position of an absolute sovereign, and that
his ungovernable fury against every one who disturbed his autocratic
course by counter-argument or counter-advice scared away from him all
independent counsellors. What various causes cooperated to produce
the weak and disgraceful management which he showed in the first
Macedonian war, we cannot tell; it may have been due perhaps to that
indolent arrogance which only puts forth its full energies against
danger when it becomes imminent, or perhaps to his indifference
towards a plan which was not of his own devising and his jealousy of
the greatness of Hannibal which put him to shame. It is certain that
his subsequent conduct betrayed no further trace of the Philip,
through whose negligence the plan of Hannibal suffered shipwreck.

Macedonia and Asia Attack Egypt

When Philip concluded his treaty with the Aetolians and Romans in
548-9, he seriously intended to make a lasting peace with Rome, and
to devote himself exclusively in future to the affairs of the east.
It admits of no doubt that he saw with regret the rapid subjugation of
Cartha