Philippe is fiery speech, a tirade, condemning speech. This term is historically associated with two prominent speakers of the ancient world - Demosthenes from Greece and Roman Cicero.
Historical background: Philip II
One of the main characters of the 4th century BC is Alexander the Great, about whom many books have been written and many films have been shot. However, no less popular was his father, Philip II (382−336 BC), who was also a great warrior and intriguer. Macedonia belonged to the northeastern lands of the Hellenic Peninsula. In the east, there was a border with the Thracian barbarians, a little further on was the frighteningly warlike Persia. And because of its geographical location, the Macedonians developed a specific dialect of the Greek language, where there were many barbaric words.
Poor Macedonia was considered a conditionally civilized state, and everyone who was not lazy attacked it. If it were not for the imperious Philip II, descending from a famous family of Macedonian kings, the country would simply be torn to pieces. At the age of 23, he already became king and gained a reputation as a sovereign ruler. He strengthened his position by conquering the lands captured earlier by Athens, and having gathered a powerful army, he himself began to attack his neighbors.
What is philippics?
The influential Athenian speaker Demosthenes (384-322 BC) with such passion and anger exposed his speeches by the king of Macedonia, Philip, the enemy of Athenian democracy, that it was his name that served as the basis for renaming the "anti-Macedonian" speeches into "philippics." These were angry and revealing speeches. This name also appealed to the famous Roman orator, Mark Tullius Cicero, who also began to call his exposing speeches against Marc Anthony “Philippians”.
Angry speech of Demosthenes
The theme of the first Philippi was the fiery appeal of the Athenians to resistance. Demosthenes encouraged the Athenians to be ready for war, trying to convince them that they had suffered because of the mistakes and incompetence of King Philip of Macedon. He opposed the use of mercenaries in the Athenian army and proposed the creation of a flexible military force that would remain in Macedonia and oppose the army of Philip. Philippe is a passionate and angry speech that has a powerful effect on the listener. The most serious charge against the King of Macedon was that he violated the terms of the 346 peace treaty.
The next (second) Philippi was a response to the fierce attack of Philip and his Athenian supporters on the allied cities. In the third angry speech, Demosthenes used all the power of his eloquence, he demanded decisive action against Philip and expected a surge of energy from the Athenian people. Macedonia and Athens were already de facto warring parties. Most importantly, Philip was the first to break the peace.
The third philippic is the best of the political speeches of Demosthenes, who behaved as the most influential politician of Athens and was the overlord of the Athenian political arena, a passionate leader of the anti-Macedonian faction, who called for an Athenian uprising against Philip.
The fourth Philippi, also attributed to Demosthenes, reflects the call of Athens to send an embassy to the Persians, but there are some doubts about its authorship. Ozhegov’s modern dictionary defines this concept as follows: angry accusatory speech. This term was subsequently used by such Russian writers as Chernyshevsky, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov and others.