POLYBIUS. 



POLYBIUS. 



910 



During his long stay at Rome, Polybitis on several occasions exerted 

 his influence in favour of his countrymen ; and at length, in B.C. 150, 

 he succeeded, with the co-operation of Scipio, in obtaining for the 

 Greek prisoners permission to return home ; but during the period of 

 seventeen years which had elapsed since their arrival in Italy, their 

 Dumber had been reduced to 300. Polybius seems to have accom- 

 panied them on their return, in order to admonish his countrymen 

 not to divide their strength, and to recognise the superiority of the 

 Romans, whose power it would be hopeless to resist; for an inscription 

 mentioned by Pausanias (viii. 37) recorded the regret of the Achseans 

 at not having followed his wise advice, by which they would have 

 escaped the catastrophe of their final political annihilation. Polybius 

 soon returned to Rome, to accompany his friend Scipio on his military 

 expeditions. It must have been before this time that he had conceived 

 the idea of writing his great historical work, and for this purpose he 

 made more profound and extensive studies than any other ancient 

 historian. He not only studied the Roman constitution, and searched 

 the archives which were thrown open to him through his connection 

 with the most distinguished Romans, but be undertook long journeys 

 across the Alps into Can), Spain, and to the coasts of the Atlantic. 

 It is not certain whether he made these journeys previous to the year 

 B.c. 150, or after his return from Greece, though it seems probable 

 that he may have availed himself of the opportunity of visiting Spain 

 when Scipio went to that country as military tribune in B.C. 151. Five 

 years later, when Scipio besieged and destroyed Cartilage, he was again 

 accompanied by Polybius, who seems to have taken an active part in 

 the Roman army, for in an inscription quoted by Paueanias (viii. 30) 

 he is culled the ally of the Romans. Pliny says that during the siege 

 of Carthage, Polybius explored the north coast of Africa, in which 

 undertaking, as on his former journeys, he was provided with every- 

 thing that could facilitate the accomplishment of his objects. Imme- 

 diately after the destruction of Carthage (B.C. 146) he hastened to the 

 Peloponnesus, where in the meantime a war with the Romans had 

 broken out. But he arrived too late : Corinth had already fallen, and 

 all he could do for his unhappy country was to endeavour to obtain 

 from tie conquerors the mildest possible conditions, and to rescue from 

 their hands the statues of Philopocmen and Aratus, with whose memory 

 the happiest associations of his countrymen were connected. After the 

 Roman commissioners had left Greece in B.C. 145, he was appointed 

 by them to regulate the affairs of the different states. With the most 

 Indefatigable zeal he traversed the country, everywhere endeavouring 

 to restore peace and unity, and to introduce salutary regulations. His 

 merit on this as well as former occasions was duly acknowledged and 

 rewarded throughout the Peloponnesus, and statues, with inscriptions 

 recording his exertions on behalf of his country, were erected at 

 Megalopolis, Acacesium, Mantinea, Pallantium, Tegea, and other places. 

 Soon after he had settled the affairs of his country ho made a voyage 

 to Kpypt, which, according to Strabo, he visited in the reign of 

 Ptolemseus Physcon, who ascended the throne in the same year that 

 Corinth was destroyed. The remaining years of his life he seems to 

 have applied to the revision and completion of his historical works, 

 unless we suppose, with Schweighaeuser and others, that in the year 

 B.C. 134 he again accompanied Scipio on his expedition against 

 Js'umantia, for which however we have no direct authority. Cicero 

 ('Ad Famil.,' v. 12) merely mentions a work of Polybius on the war 

 against Numantia. The time of his death is uncertain, for the only 

 information that has come down to us is the statement of Luciau 

 (Macrob., c. 23), who says that Polybius, on returning from the country, 

 fell from his horse, and shortly after died from the fall, at the age of 

 eighty-two. (Supposing the statement to be correct, be must have died 

 about the year B.C. 122. 



The great historical work of Polybius (jj rwv t<a06\ou irpay/j-drwif 

 ffiVroJis), in forty bookx, consisted of two distinct parts, the first of 

 which eon, prised a period of fifty-three years, from the beginning of 

 the second Punic war to the overthrow of the kingdom of Macedonia, 

 including the immediate consequences of this event, that is, the 

 pacification of Rhodes, and the sending of the 1000 Achican prisoners 

 to Italy. The second part began with the war in Spain against the 

 ( 'eltiberians and Yaccteans, and ended with the destruction of Corinth. 

 It is evident, from various circumstances (Nlebuhr, ' Hist, of Rome,' 

 vol. iii., p. 49), and especially from the manner in which Polybius 

 (iil. 1-5) speaks of these two divisions of his work, that they were 

 written and published at different times, and afterwards put together 

 to form one whole. The latter part was written after the fall of 

 Corinth, and the former some years before that event. The first 

 two books are an introduction to the first division of the work, 

 and contain a sketch of the history of Rome, from the taking of the 

 city by the Gauls to the beginning of the second Punic war. The 

 second division of the work, the principal object of which was to 

 describe the fate of Carthage and Greece, and the causes which led to 

 it, was likewise preceded by a kind of introduction, consisting of a 

 brief history of the interval between the overthrow of the Macedonian 

 kingdom and the events which led to the fall of Carthage and Corinth. 

 The great object of the history of Polybius was to show how the 

 liomans, with their admirable constitution and their unity of purpose, 

 within a short period gained the dominion over the greater part of 

 the known world. Thus, although the history of Rome formed, as it 

 were, the nucleus of big work, it was still essentially a universal 



history ; and every nation, with its history and institutions, as it came 

 in contact with the Romans, was treated with equal attention. But the 

 work was further interspersed with episodes or dissertations on various 

 subjects, such as tactics (vi. 17-46), geography (xxxiv.), political insti- 

 tutions, &c., which the author thought necessary to insert, partly to 

 render his narrative more intelligible, partly to refute false opinions 

 current among his countrymen. Whatever we may think of these 

 episodes, looking at the whole work in an artistical point of view, we 

 are indebted to them for the soundest information on many subjects 

 connected with the history of antiquity, especially that of Rome ; and 

 it is only to be regretted that many points in his dissertation on Roman 

 tactics are not quite so clear to us as we could wish. 



The study and research of Polybius before he began to write his 

 work, together with his almost unparalleled impartiality and love of 

 truth, have given it a character of authenticity such as very few his- 

 torical works, either of ancient or modern times, can claim. He is a 

 severe critic of his predecessors, with whose writings he was thoroughly 

 acquainted ; and although he himself was under the greatest obliga- 

 tions to the Romans for their behaviour to him, still he did not spare 

 them whenever they deserved censure (see especially ix. 10, and xviii. 

 18.) The love of his country moreover did not make him blind to the 

 folly of its leaders, who endeavoured to draw it into the fatal conflict 

 with Rome. But the distinguishing character of his work is its 

 didactic and practical tendency. He did not write for the sake of 

 amusement, or of filling the memory of his reader with a number of 

 unconnected facts, but he traces events back to their causes, and 

 deduces from them the most useful precepts, much in the same way 

 as the so-called 'histoires raisonndes' of modern times, but with 

 infinitely more wisdom and discretion. It is true that he thus wishes 

 to guide his reader, and not to allow Mm to form his own opinions ; 

 but setting aside the consideration that an intelligent reader may and 

 will always judge for himself, who would not willingly listen to the 

 arguments and reasonings of a statesman and a general like Polybius ? 

 His work is full of the most profound political and military wisdom ; 

 or, as a modern historian expresses it, " a code of the wisest political 

 and military maxims ; " and enables the reader not only to understand 

 the past, but to look upon the future with the foreseeing eye of a 

 prophet. As the object of Polybius was not to make his work popular 

 with the multitude, but to instruct and guide men who are entrusted 

 with the care cf their country, he abstained from all rhetorical 

 embellishments of style. He looked with contempt upon the refined 

 affectation and hollowness of the rhetoricians of his time, for true 

 public oratory had long ceased among the Greeks. Hence he very 

 seldom introduced his heroes making speeches, though it still was and 

 remained a favourite custom with his countrymen down to the latest 

 period of their literature ; but where he thinks it necessary, he gives 

 the substance of their speeches in his own wonls. It is natural that 

 undtr these circumstances the rhetoricians of his own as well as of a 

 later age should have been unable to appreciate Polybius. (Niebuhr, 

 ' Hist, of Rome,' vol. i., p. 533.) Dionysius, though in many respects a 

 judicious critic ('De Comp. Verb.,' c. 4), says that the history of 

 Polybius is written in such a style that no one can endure to read it 

 through from beginning to end. Another charge which has been 

 brought against 1'olybius in modern times is that of a want of sym- 

 pathy with the sufferings of his own country. That this want is 

 merely apparent, and perhaps owing to his philosophical mode of 

 viewing things, is sufficiently evident from his whole conduct towards 

 his country; and the fragments of his work discovered by A. Mai, in 

 which he describes the sufferings of his countrymen, are full of 

 expressions of the deepest sorrow for their calamities. 



It may be chiefly owing to his style that the works of Polybius in sub- 

 sequent ages were lees read and copied than others of a greatly inferior 

 character, and that to this cause we have to ascribe the loss of the 

 greater part of them ; for of the forty books, only the first five are pre- 

 served entire ; and of the rest, wo possess only fragments and extracts. 

 At the time of the revival of letters, about the middle of the 15th 

 century, and long before any part of the Greek text was printed, an 

 elegant but incorrect Latin translation of the first five books was 

 published by Nieolaus Perotti at Rome. In 1529 the Greek text, 

 with a Latin translation of the dissertation ' De Militia Romaua," by 

 Lascaris, appeared at Venice ; and it was a year later that the Greek 

 text and the Latin translation of the first five books by Perotti were 

 edited by Orsopcous. As soon as the merits of Polybius began to be 

 acknowledged, aud a desire was awakened to possess more of his 

 work, the number of new fragments continued to increase. In 1536 

 eight chapters of the sixteenth book were discovered and published; 

 and in 1549, extracts from books vii.-xvii , together with a fragment 

 of the nineteenth chapter of book i., which had hitherto been wanting, 

 were added from a manuscript which had been brought over from the 

 island of Corfu. A very important addition to the fragments of 

 Polybius was made in 1582 by Fulvius Ursinus, who, for the first 

 time, published the first section of the ' Excerpta,' from various 

 ancient historians, which, in the Kith century, the emperor Constan- 

 tius Porphyrogennetus had ordered to be made, and which contained 

 a great many extracts from the history of 1'olybius. Casaubou, in 

 1609, published a complete edition of all that had till then been dis- 

 covered of the works of Polybius, and made a new Latin translation 

 of the whole. The second section of the Excerpta of Constantinus, 



