[2] During his first consulship, he aided his co-consul Spurius Postumius Albinus in the suppression of the Bacchanalia and the drafting of the senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus.
[3][4] According to the historian Titus Livius, he was badly defeated by the Apuan Ligures in a 186 BC battle with Saltus Marcius,[5] fought, probably, in the territory of Seravezza.
He served as an ambassador to Macedonia and the Peloponnese in 183 BC, observing the actions of the Achaean League,[8] and he incited the senate's fears of King Perseus in his report the following year.
[11][12] Philippus was reelected consul in 169 BC[13] and lead the Roman army during the third year of the Third Macedonian War.
[14] In 164 BC Philippus was elected censor with Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, during which he set up a public sundial in the Rostra next to a previous one by Manius Valerius Maximus Messalla.