Quick questions on The rise of Macedon and Philip II: HSC Ancient History

For most of its earlier history Macedon was a marginal power. It was a personal monarchy under the Argead royal house, not a polis; its people spoke a form of Greek but were often dismissed as half-barbarian by the southern cities. Royal authority was fragile, resting on the loyalty of quarrelsome nobles and the semi-independent chieftains of Upper Macedonia, and the throne had repeatedly changed hands by murder and civil war. The kingdom was hemmed in by aggressive neighbours: Illyrians and Paeonians to the west and north, Thracians to the east, and the Greek states, above all Athens, interfering along the coast.

Our main narrative is Diodorus Siculus, whose Bibliotheke Book 16 covers Philip's reign (first century BC, drawing on earlier lost historians). The contemporary Athenian orator Demosthenes gives a vivid hostile view in the Philippics and Olynthiacs, while the panhellenist Isocrates (in his Philip) idealises him. Justin's later epitome of Pompeius Trogus preserves further material but is brief and moralising, and the important contemporary Theopompus, whose Philippica was hostile and censorious, survives only in fragments.

N.G.L. Hammond, the great historian of Macedon, credited Philip with a genuine military and administrative revolution and rated him as important as his more famous son. Ian Worthington emphasises Philip the calculating diplomat and statesman, arguing that his fusion of force, wealth and diplomacy, not battle alone, explains his success.