His youthful biography of Philopoemen reflected his admiration for that great Achaean leader, and an interest in military matters found expression in his lost book, Tactics. II, 16, 13–15; III, 48, 8; VII, 7, 1–2; XV, 34, 1–36). And he practiced what he preached, for he possessed good political and military experience and had traveled widely throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. For the main part of his history, from 220 onward, he consulted many writers, Greek and Roman, but, following precedent, he rarely names them.
As writers of monographs whose subjects are simple and monotonous, they are driven “to magnify small matters, to touch up and elaborate brief statements and to transform incidents of no importance into momentous events and actions” (XXIX, 12, 3). Fittingly, it was a Greek writing in Greek, The most significant influence on Scipio’s character was his friendship with the Greek historian. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. The events of 168–146 were related in Books XXX–XXXIX. Rathbone Professor Emeritus of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, University of Liverpool. At some date he visited Alexandria and Sardis.
Normally, Polybius lays great emphasis on causality, and his distinction (III, 6) between the causes of an event (aitiai) and its immediate origins (archai) is useful up to a point, though it is more mechanical than that of the great Greek historian Thucydides and allows nothing for the dialectical character of real historical situations. Anything else would be “hearsay at one remove,” a safe foundation for neither judgments nor statements.
To the scholar his style is, however, no great obstacle; and, though in his anxiety to improve his reader he moralizes and belabours the obvious, the perennial interest and importance of his theme will always ensure him a following among those who can enjoy a historian who is accurate, serious, and sensible, who understands the events of which he writes, and, above all, who asks the right questions.
Polybius believed that he had a particular reason for adopting a comprehensive view of history, apart from his own predilection for such a view. Nor did he neglect written sources; indeed, for his introductory books, covering the period from 264 to 220, they were essential. His detailed figures for Hannibal’s troop formations in Italy came from an inscription left by Hannibal, which he found in the Temple of Juno on the Lacinian promontory.
Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. History is essentially didactic. Nor are these their only weaknesses. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Tyche [Fortune] having guided almost all the world’s affairs in one direction and having inclined them to one and the same goal, so the historian must bring under one conspectus for his readers the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose.
Practical experience and fortitude in facing calamity are the rewards of studying history and are stressed repeatedly throughout the work. Books I–II form an introduction covering Roman history from the crossing into Sicily against the Carthaginians in 264 and including events in various other parts of the world (especially Achaea) between 264 and 220. He wrote a history of the Numantine War, evidently after 133 bce, and also a treatise on the habitability of the equatorial region; but when he composed the latter is unknown.
The infelicity of Polybius’ Greek (which frequently reproduces the conventional phrases of the Hellenistic chancelleries familiar from contemporary inscriptions) lies in its awkward use of long and cumbersome circumlocutions, vague abstract nouns, and pedantic repetitions. It is probable that Polybius accompanied Scipio to Spain in 151, went with him to Africa (where he saw the Numidian king Masinissa), and crossed the Alps in Hannibal’s footsteps on his way back to Italy. For the rest there are various excerpts, including those contained in the collection of passages from Greek historians assembled in the 10th century and rediscovered and published by various editors from the 16th to the 19th century.
Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. At least Books I–VI seem to have been published by about 150; there is no information as to when the rest of the work, including the revised plan in Book III, appeared.
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Similar faults are castigated in other historians judged guilty of sensationalism (cf.
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He had access to private sources; for example, Publius Cornelius Scipio’s letter to Philip V of Macedonia describing the capture in Spain, in 209 bce, of New Carthage (X, 9, 3), and a letter of Scipio Nasica to some Hellenistic king about the campaigns of the Third Macedonian War (XXIX, 14, 3).
Usually, although Polybius uses Fortune to cover a variety of phenomena, ranging from pure chance to something very like a purposeful providence, much of the apparent inconsistency springs from his use of purely verbal elaboration or the careless adoption of current Hellenistic terminology, which habitually made Fortune a goddess. Polybius regarded oral sources as his most important, and the questioning of witnesses as the most vital part of a historian’s task; indeed, this is one reason why he chose to begin his main history at the year 220.
Pleasure is not to be wholly excluded, but the scale comes down sharply on the side of profit.
Writing in the 1st century bce, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reckons Polybius among those who “have left behind them compositions which no one endures to read to the end”; that his successors shared this view of Polybius’ style is confirmed by the failure of his works to survive except in an incomplete form. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
It has not been proved that he had access to the Rhodian records.
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