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Updated: June 11, 2025
Philopoemen was possessed of an admirable degree of skill and experience, in conducting a march, and choosing his station; having made these points his principal study, not only in times of war, but likewise during peace.
And now Philopoemen was in everybody's mouth, as a man who in actual fighting with his own hand yielded not to the youngest, nor in good conduct to the oldest, and than whom there came not into the field any better soldier or commander.
The "Philopoemen" of the Louvre is a fine work, even impressively large and simple. But it is the competent work of a member of a school and leaves one a little cold. Its academic quality quite overshadows whatever personal feeling one may by searching find in the severity of its treatment and the way in which a classic motive has been followed out naturally and genuinely instead of perfunctorily.
He seems, in truth, to have prodigalled away his own life, through passion and perverseness; for he fell upon the Messenians, not with that conduct and caution that characterized the movements of Titus, but with unnecessary and unreasonable haste. The many battles he fought, and the many trophies he won, may make us ascribe to Philopoemen the more thorough knowledge of war.
Titus decided the matter betwixt Philip and himself in two engagements; but Philopoemen came off victorious in ten thousand encounters, to all which fortune had scarcely any presence, so much were they owing to his skill.
The fight was, for a considerable time, doubtful, as the troops on both sides were of the same kind and armed alike; but as the contest advanced, the tyrant's auxiliaries gained an advantage, both by their superiority of numbers, and because Philopoemen had given directions to his officers, that, after maintaining the contest for a short time they should betake themselves to flight, and draw the enemy on to the place of the ambuscade.
When the war betwixt Antiochus and the Romans broke out in Greece, Philopoemen was a private man. He repined grievously, when he saw Antiochus lay idle at Chalcis, spending his time in unseasonable courtship and weddings, while his men lay dispersed in several towns, without order or commanders, and minding nothing but their pleasures.
In the words of Pausanias, a late Greek writer, "Miltiades was the first, and Philopoemen the last, benefactor to the whole of Greece." Greece learned too late the art of combining for self-defence. In the war against the vast power of Persia, Athens stood almost alone. What aid she got from the rest of Greece was given grudgingly.
In 183 the Messenians, under the leadership of Dinocrates, having revolted from the league, Philopoemen, who had now attained the age of 70, led an expedition against them; but having fallen from his horse in a skirmish of cavalry, he was captured, and conveyed with many circumstances of ignominy to Messene, where, after a sort of mock trial, he was executed.
Mummius rejected the proposal to throw down the statues of Philopoemen, the founder of the Achaean patriotic party; the fines imposed on the communities were destined not for the Roman exchequer, but for the injured Greek cities, and were mostly remitted afterwards; and the property of those traitors who had parents or children was not sold on public account, but handed over to their relatives.
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