Talk:Philip V of Macedon

Status of Perseus, one of Philip V's sons
According to the Oxford "Who's Who in the Classical World", Perseus was Philip V's eldest son. Philip V's other, younger, son was called Demetrius. Demetrius became an ally of the Romans because they promised him the throne of Macedonia, something that could only happen with the demise of both Philip and Perseus. It was this that led Philip to eventually execute Demetrius for treason. --Chaleyer61 (talk) 05:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Legion "Superiority"
I have put a citation needed tag on the claim that the Legion's victory over Philip V "proved the Greek Phalanx obsolete." In fact, Macedonian-style phalanxes managed to compete successfully against Rome on a number of occasions - Pyrrhus thrashed the Romans repeatedly with his Hellenic Army, but Rome's inexhaustible manpower and indomitable spirit finally wore him down. The reasons Philip lost were more that: (1) the battle was a meeting engagement and Philip's phalanx did not have time to deploy properly; (2) he was fighting on uneven ground that did not favor phalanx warfare; (3) Philip's army was not very diversified, something that was highly neccessary in Hellenic armies centered around an inflexible phalanx; and (4) he (and his army) lacked the high degree of tactical discipline that Pyrrhus and Alexander exhibited.

The Legion had some marked advantages over the Macedonian Phalanx, but saying that the Roman victory over the former Macedonian kingdoms proves that "the Legion was better than the Phalanx" is a gross oversimplification, and one that fails to take into account the acheivements of Pyrrhus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.177.13.40 (talk) 05:21, 30 March 2012 (UTC)


 * By the time of the First and Second Macedonian Wars, tactics of the legion had significantly improved, and the added mobility of the legion did in fact spell the death-knell of the phalanx as a military weapon. The phalanx needed good ground to operate properly, the legion was more flexible in this respect.  This is why it disappears as a military formation - in its day it was revolutionary and very effective, but like the spear was replaced by the gun, so the phalanx was abandoned for other, more effective army models. This is not to say that the phalanx could not inflict heavy casualties on the Romans, but in the end, it is who wins the battle that determines which military technique is superior.HammerFilmFan (talk) 13:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but that's nothing more than a post-hoc logical fallacy. The Germans lost the majority of their post-1942 Ostfront battles despite superior tactics.
 * Absolute rubbish - the two are not remotely comparable, and this speaks of a great ignorance of both history and military knowledge.50.111.51.247 (talk) 02:49, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Second Macedonian War section
The first sentence is incorrect - Philip attacked Abydos (Hellespont), not Abydos (Egypt). 162.250.161.198 (talk) 17:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)