Polybius - The Histories (Oxford World’s Classics)

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Translation Robin Waterfield 2010
Editorial material Brian McGing 2010

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First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 2010

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

POLYBIUS

Translated by
ROBIN WATERFIELD

With an Introduction and Notes by
BRIAN McGING

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

THE HISTORIES

POLYBIUS, son of Lycortas, was a statesman, soldier, explorer, and historian from the Greek city of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese. He was born in about 200 BC and died probably around 118. His career as a leading politician in the confederation of Peloponnesian states known as the Achaean League was cut short when he found himself among 1,000 Achaean leaders deported to Italy after the Roman victory over Macedon in 168. He spent seventeen years in exile in Rome where he befriended the young Scipio Aemilianus. He was with Scipio at the destruction of Carthage in 146, a year in which the Achaean League also met with destruction at the hands of Rome. Polybius played a major role in the reconstruction of Greece after this disaster. At some stage he retraced Hannibals march from Spain to Italy, and also sailed into the Atlantic and down the coast of west Africa. He wrote works (no longer extant) on tactics, on Romes war against Numantia in Spain, on the equatorial region, and on the great Achaean statesman Philopoemen, but his main literary enterprise was the Histories, a study in forty books of Romes rise to world power and her method of rule in the years 220146 BC. Only the first five books survive in full, but there are extensive excerpts from many of the others, including Book 12, an analysis of how to write history (and how not to write it), and Book 6, a study of the Roman constitution.

ROBIN WATERFIELD is a writer, living in Greece. His previous translations for Oxford Worlds Classics include Platos Republic and five other editions of Platos dialogues, Aristotles Physics, Herodotus Histories, Plutarchs Greek Lives and Roman Lives, Euripides Orestes and Other Plays and Heracles and Other Plays, Xenophons The Expedition of Cyrus, and The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and the Sophists.

BRIAN MCGING is Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College Dublin. Among many other publications on Hellenistic history he has recently completed a book on Polybius (2010).

As the third century BC moved into its last quarter, Rome was standing on the threshold of Mediterranean dominion. Both in the period when kings ruled Rome and after the foundation of the Republic (traditionally dated to 509 BC) she had enjoyed a steady, indeed, in spite of setbacks relentless growth in political power. She had gradually absorbed the surrounding towns and areas of central Italy, and in due course brought to heel all challengers on the Italian peninsula. From 280 to 275 she had even seen off the threat of the Greek adventurer, Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had answered the call for help from the people of the south Italian town of Tarentum, and brought an army to confront Rome. The astute observer will have found it militarily and politically significant that although Pyrrhus actually defeated the Romans in battle on three occasions, his victories were unsustainably expensive (Pyrrhic), and he could not match the Italian manpower at Romes disposal.

Romes resources were soon tested again, this time by a much mightier opponent, the great maritime and mercantile power of Carthage. It is difficult to say who was responsible for the First Punic War (264241)perhaps both sides equallybut Carthage had long controlled western Sicily, and Roman meddling in the east of the island brought them into conflict. What might initially have been a localized firefight in the north-eastern corner soon developed into a struggle for control of all Sicily, a struggle which Rome eventually won.

Immediately after the war, Carthage had to face a revolt of her extensive mercenary forces, and Rome took advantage of the situation to seize Sardinia, another Carthaginian possession. Even without the benefit of hindsight, many contemporaries must have thought that there was unfinished business between the two powers and that it would again lead them into conflict. The causes of the Second Punic War (218201) are also uncertain, but it was Mediterranean dominion that was at stake. The east coast of Spain was the flashpointthe capture of Romes ally, Saguntum (modern Sagunto), by the brilliant young commander of the Carthaginian forces in Spain, Hannibal, would probably have been enough to precipitate warbut Hannibals decision to launch an invasion of Italy made it clear that this war was not going to be about bragging rights in Spain: the Carthaginian objective was the conquest of Rome. A series of early victories, culminating in the destruction of the Roman army at the battle of Cannae (216), put Hannibal within touching distance of success. But that was as good as it got for him: with the city of Rome apparently at his mercy he failed to besiege it, and although the war dragged on for another fifteen years in different theatres of war (Italy, Spain, Sicily, and eventually north Africa), Hannibal never again got close to achieving overall victory. In 202, having been recalled to Africa to defend Carthage, he suffered the same sort of defeat at the battle of Zama as he had inflicted on Rome at Cannae. Carthage, unlike Rome, did not have the resources to soak up defeat, and had no option but to surrender.