But we actually have a fair bit of evidence that Philip did invade Sparta and that the end results were less than the Spartans might have hoped for! 5/25
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So Polybius is eager to tell us absolutely anything that makes the Spartans look like fools, but he is also a lot more careful and scrupulous than Plutarch and closer to events (and consequently, rather more reliable). 14/25
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Polybius notes in a set of speeches (Plb. 9.28ff) that Philip "Accordingly he came with his army and destroyed the earth by cutting and the houses with fire, finally partitioning your [=the Spartans] town and the country... 15/25
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...he allotted part of it to the Argives, part to the Tegeans and Megalopolitans and part to the Messenians" So it seems there was no battle, but just a lot of raiding and then Philip reached some settlement in which significant territory was lost to Sparta. 16/25
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Plb returns in an aside on treachery (Plb. 18.14.1-15) that the Arcadians joined Philip and "by inducing Philip to enter the Peloponnesus and humbling the Lacedaemonians...allowed all of the inhabitants of the Peloponnesus to breathe freely...recovering the territory.. 17/25
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...and cities of which the Lacedaemonians (=Spartans) in their prosperity had deprived the Messenians, Megalopolitans, Tegeans and Argives." This is an easy passage for the unfamiliar to mess up, because Polybius has more than one Philip to deal with. 18/25
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Immediately before this digression on treachery, Polybius is talking about Philip V (r. 221-179), but what makes it clear that here he means Philip II (r. 359-336) is that he poses this thought in answer to an accusation of treachery *by Demosthenes* 19/25
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And while there is more than one Demosthenes, in this case it is clear that the Athenian orator and politician (384-322) is meant, meaning that the Philip in the passage must be Philip II, not V. 20/25
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That Polybius isn't just blowing smoke seems confirmed by Tacitus, who notes that this very land seizure came up as a legal issue before the Roman Emperor Tiberius (Tac. Ann. 43). 21/25
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Tacitus notes a dispute "upon the legal ownership of the Temple of Diana Limnatis" which "had been wrested from [the Spartans], however, by the Macedonian arms during their war with Philip and had been returned later by the decision of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony." 22/25
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Once again, that the Philip meant is Philip II is made clear by Tacitus' brief legal history of the case, which notes judgements in favor of the Messenians by Antigonus Doson (r. 229-221) and the Roman L. Mummius (cos 146), so the Philip must be II, not V. 23/25
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So what can we conclude? Well, there was a well established tradition that Sparta had defied Philip, that Philip had marched against them in arms, and that the result of that march had been that Sparta lost important territory on its borders. 24/25
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Which is why I responded to Pressfield treating the Laconic 'if' as a mic-drop moment like this: https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1346686713838653440 … (end/25)
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Oh, as a quick addendum, Tiberius decided the land dispute in favor of the Messenians, on the grounds that the decisions in their favor were long-standing, dating back to Philip II and had been repeatedly confirmed by both Macedonian and Roman authorities.
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