37 Facts About Polybius

1.

Polybius' Histories is important not only for being the only Hellenistic historical work to survive in any substantial form, but for its analysis of constitutional change and the mixed constitution.

2.

Polybius was born around 200 BC in Megalopolis, Arcadia, when it was an active member of the Achaean League.

3.

Polybius' father, Lycortas, was a prominent, land-owning politician and member of the governing class who became strategos of the Achaean League.

4.

Consequently, Polybius was able to observe first hand during his first 30 years the political and military affairs of Megalopolis, gaining experience as a statesman.

5.

Polybius developed an interest in horse riding and hunting, diversions that later commended him to his Roman captors.

6.

In either 170 BC or 169 BC, Polybius was elected hipparchus and was due to assist Rome militarily during the Third Macedonian War, although this never about.

7.

Lycortas attracted the suspicion of the Romans, and Polybius subsequently was one of the 1,000 Achaean nobles who were transported to Rome as hostages in 167 BC, and was detained there for 17 years.

8.

In Rome, by virtue of his high culture, Polybius was admitted to the most distinguished houses, in particular to that of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the conqueror in the Third Macedonian War, who entrusted Polybius with the education of his sons, Fabius and Scipio Aemilianus.

9.

Polybius remained on cordial terms with his former pupil Scipio Aemilianus and was among the members of the Scipionic Circle.

10.

When Scipio defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War, Polybius remained his counsellor.

11.

The Achaean hostages were released in 150 BC, and Polybius was granted leave to return home, but the next year he went on campaign with Scipio Aemilianus to Africa, and was present at the Sack of Carthage in 146, which he later described.

12.

Polybius was charged with the difficult task of organizing the new form of government in the Greek cities, and in this office he gained great recognition.

13.

Polybius apparently interviewed veterans to clarify details of the events he was recording and was similarly given access to archival material.

14.

Polybius later wrote about this war in a lost monograph.

15.

Polybius probably returned to Greece later in his life, as evidenced by the many existent inscriptions and statues of him there.

16.

Polybius held that historians should, if possible, only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of factual integrity in historical writing.

17.

Polybius himself exemplified these principles as he was well travelled and possessed political and military experience.

18.

Polybius consulted and used written sources providing essential material for the period between 264 BC to 220 BC, including, for instance, treaty documents between Rome and Carthage in the First Punic War, the history of the Greek historian Phylarchus, and the Memoirs of the Achaean politician, Aratus of Sicyon.

19.

Polybius's earliest work was a biography of the Greek statesman Philopoemen; this work was later used as a source by Plutarch when composing his Parallel Lives; however, the original Polybian text is lost.

20.

Polybius was among the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination and criticism of tradition.

21.

The character of the Polybian statesman is exemplified in that of Philip II, who Polybius believed exhibited both excellent military prowess and skill, as well as proficient ability in diplomacy and moral leadership.

22.

For Polybius, it was inconceivable that such an able and effective statesman could have had an immoral and unrestrained private life as described by Theopompus.

23.

Polybius saw, for instance, the character and leadership of the later Philip V of Macedon, one of Rome's leading adversaries in the Greek East, as the opposite of his earlier exemplary namesake.

24.

Philip V became increasingly tyrannical, irrational and impious following brilliant military and political success in his youth; this resulted, Polybius believed, in his abandonment by his Greek allies and his eventual defeat by Rome in 197 BC.

25.

Polybius is considered by some to be the successor of Thucydides in terms of objectivity and critical reasoning, and the forefather of scholarly, painstaking historical research in the modern scientific sense.

26.

Polybius's work belongs, therefore, amongst the greatest productions of ancient historical writing.

27.

Peter Green advises that Polybius was chronicling Roman history for a Greek audience, to justify what he believed to be the inevitability of Roman rule.

28.

For Ronald Mellor, Polybius was a loyal partisan of Scipio, intent on vilifying his patron's opponents.

29.

Polybius was responsible for a useful tool in telegraphy that allowed letters to be easily signaled using a numerical system, called "the Polybius square," mentioned in Hist.

30.

However, Polybius himself was writing in Greek, and would have implemented his cipher square in the Greek alphabet.

31.

Polybius was considered a poor stylist by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing of Polybius' history that "no one has the endurance to reach [its] end".

32.

Polybius is quoted extensively by Strabo writing in the 1st century BC and Athenaeus in the 3rd century AD.

33.

Polybius is mentioned by Cicero and mined for information by Diodorus, Livy, Plutarch and Arrian.

34.

Polybius's works reappeared in the West first in Renaissance Florence.

35.

Polybius gained a following in Italy, and although poor Latin translations hampered proper scholarship on his works, they contributed to the city's historical and political discourse.

36.

Consequently, in the late 16th century, Polybius' works found a greater reading audience among the learned public.

37.

Since the Age of Enlightenment, Polybius has in general held appeal to those interested in Hellenistic Greece and early Republican Rome, while his political and military writings have lost influence in academia.