Walbank's Philip V of Macedon
Three or four years after the publication of Mr. Walbank's book it would be idle to join in the chorus of praise which the most eminent authorities on the history of the Hellenistic Age have unanimously and deservedly showered upon it. But the time has come to show how far the author has succeeded in combining pioneer-work in a new province with the results which a former generation of scholars had already been able to achieve. Nothing, indeed, can better testify to the vitality, timeliness, and many-sidedness of the present book than its author's efforts to put to the test, in his most recent writings, the conclusions which he had already reached, to enlarge and revise, if need be, some points he had not previously dwelt upon with all the desirable minuteness, and to sound again the principles on which this volume rests. Hence one might justifiably describe it as a Janus-like portrait of Philip V. On one side it connects with and reflects the labours of Mr. Walbank's predecessors, chiefly the late Maurice Holleaux. But its other face looks to a basically different treatment of the history of the late third and early second centuries B.C.— more in agreement with the intellectual requirements and the tenets of a new school of historical writing. In this way, if I may venture to use these words, Mr. Walbank's book partakes of the past and the future; and it is, I submit, a merit, and perhaps its strongest attraction, that it should stimulate the reader to recollect the experiences of its forerunners, and to work out new solutions for old problems.