Isocrates of Athens To Philip II in Greek

"To Philip" is a political oration composed by the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates around 346 BCE. Addressed to King Philip II of Macedon, the work is structured as a single, continuous speech intended for reading, representing an epistolary form of oratory. Written in Attic Greek, it constitutes a direct appeal for Philip to unite the fractious Greek city-states and lead them in a concerted military campaign against the Persian Empire. Isocrates frames this Panhellenic expedition as the solution to endemic Greek strife, promising it would bring prosperity and stability to the region.

The oration survives in full through medieval manuscripts as part of the collected works of Isocrates. Scholars regard it as a pivotal text that captures the shifting political dynamics of the mid-4th century BCE, composed in the aftermath of a peace treaty between Athens and Macedon as Philip's influence was ascendant. It marks a significant evolution in Isocrates' own political thought, wherein he abandons his earlier advocacy for Athenian or Spartan leadership and instead promotes a powerful monarchy as the pragmatic instrument for achieving Greek unity. Although Philip never undertook the specific campaign proposed, the oration remains a crucial document for understanding the intellectual climate that preceded the Hellenistic age and the eventual conquests of Alexander the Great.