city and resolution, but these were, in a
singular manner, combined with procrastination and supineness; which
is perhaps partly to be explained by the fact, that he was called in
his eighteenth year to the position of an absolute sovereign, and that
his ungovernable fury against every one who disturbed his autocratic
course by counter-argument or counter-advice scared away from him all
independent counsellors. What various causes cooperated to produce
the weak and disgraceful management which he showed in the first
Macedonian war, we cannot tell; it may have been due perhaps to that
indolent arrogance which only puts forth its full energies against
danger when it becomes imminent, or perhaps to his indifference
towards a plan which was not of his own devising and his jealousy of
the greatness of Hannibal which put him to shame. It is certain that
his subsequent conduct betrayed no further trace of the Philip,
through whose negligence the plan of Hannibal suffered shipwreck.

Macedonia and Asia Attack Egypt

When Philip concluded his treaty with the Aetolians and Romans in
548-9, he seriously intended to make a lasting peace with Rome, and
to devote himself exclusively in future to the affairs of the east.
It admits of no doubt that he saw with regret the rapid subjugation of
Carthage; and it may be, that Hannibal hoped for a second declaration
of war from Macedonia, and that Philip secretly reinforced the last
Carthaginian army with mercenaries.(2) But the tedious affairs in
which he had meanwhile involved himself in the east, as well as the
nature of the alleged support, and especially the total silence of the
Romans as to such a breach of the peace while they were searching for
grounds of war, place it beyond doubt, that Philip was by no means
disposed in 551 to make up for what he ought to have done ten years
before. He had turned his eyes to an entirely different quarter.

Ptolemy Philopator of Egypt had died in 549. Philip and Antiochus,
the kings of Macedonia and Asia, had combined against his successor
Ptolemy Epiphanes, a child of five years old, in order completely
to gratify the ancient grudge which the monarchies of the mainland
entertained towards the maritime state. The Egyptian state was to be
broken up; Egypt and Cyprus were to fall to Antiochus Cyrene, Ionia,
and the Cyclades to Philip. Thoroughly after the manner of Philip,
who ridiculed such considerations, the kings began the war not merely