In this respect Theopompus is one of the writers who is most to blame. At the outset of his history of Philip, son of Amyntas, he states that what chiefly induced him to undertake this work was that Europe had never produced such a man before as this Philip;
and yet immediately afterwards in his preface and throughout the book he shows him to have been first so incontinent about women, that as far as in him lay he ruined his own home by his passionate and ostentatious addiction to this kind of thing;
next a most wicked and mischievous man in his schemes for forming friendships and alliances; thirdly, one who had enslaved and betrayed a large number of cities by force or fraud;
and lastly, one so addicted to strong drink that he was frequently seen by his friends manifestly drunk in broad daylight.
Anyone who chooses to read the beginning of his forty-ninth Book will be amazed at the extravagance of this writer. Apart from other things, he has ventured to write as follows. I set down the passage in his own words:
"Philip\'s court in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a> was the gathering-place of all the most debauched and brazen-faced characters in Greece or abroad, who were there styled the king\'s companions.
For Philip in general showed no favour to men of good repute who were careful of their property, but those he honoured and promoted were spendthrifts who passed their time drinking and gambling.
In consequence he not only encouraged them in their vices, but made them past masters in every kind of wickedness and lewdness.
Was ther anything indeed disgraceful and shocking that they did not practise, and was there anything good and creditable that they did not leave undone? Some of them used to shave their bodies and make them smooth although they were men, and others actually practised lewdness with each other though bearded.
While carrying about two or three minions with them they served others in the same capacity, so that we would be justified in calling them not courtiers but courtesans and not soldiers but strumpets.
For being by nature man-slayers they became by their practices man-whores.
In a word," he continues, "not to be prolix, and especially as I am beset by such a deluge of other matters, my opinion is that those who were called Philip\'s friends and companions were worse brutes and of a more beastly disposition than the Centaurs who established themselves on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Pelion&groupId=855&placeId=1539">Pelion</a>, or those Laestrygones who dwelt in the plain of Leontini, or any other monsters."
Walbank Commentary