Cicero says that Philippus was decidedly inferior as an orator to his two great contemporaries Crassus and Antonius, but was without question next to them, but far next ("sed longo intervallo tamen proxumus. itaque eum, [...], neque secundum tamen neque tertium dixerim": "I could not call him a second or a third"). In speaking he possessed much freedom and wit; he was fertile in invention, and clear in the development of his ideas; and in altercation he was witty and sarcastic.