Polybius - Rise of the Roman Empire

I suspect that these old-timey authors with a multisyllabic-yet-single-name do not get read very often in this enlightened age, however I'd like to suggest a few reasons why reading one of these dead white guys still makes very good sense for modern readers.

A little background: Polybius was a Greek, who lived in the second century before Christ. A historian, Polybius is best known for his Rise of the Roman Empire, also known as The Histories, which is interesting, since the Roman Empire as we know it today did not arise for more than a century after his time. Still, it is good to read an author prescient enough to foresee the future a hundred years off and predict it accurately.

The Histories concern the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean world, the destruction of Carthage, its major rival, and Rome's subsequent hegemony over the entire Mediterranean.

Polybius is important because he was closer in time to Rome's war against Hannibal (218 - 202 BC) and Polybius actually was on the scene at the final destruction of Carthage in 146 BC by the forces of Scipio Aemilianus. Carthage was leveled and the Romans sowed salt to ensure it never rose again, as you remember from your schoolbooks. Polybius' work served as a model and source for both Livy and Diodorus Siculus' histories.

Why this book is part of the Database Diving Write-off:

I was about to give up in disgust for the umpty-umpth time, not finding "Polybius" (in this version) in the blankety-blank Epinions database when an idea struck me. Why not search under title instead of author? For some reason only known to the mavens at Brisbane, this book does not come up when I search for "Polybius," but does when I search for "Rise Roman Empire." Anyway, with that little change I was finally able to write this review of an author that is long since overdue for recognition.

This book is a Penguin Classics edition, which in this day and age means, "as good as it gets." There is also a scholarly edition put out by Harvard University Press in 6 volumes that covers the same material, with both Greek and English versions of the text on alternating pages. Trust me - the Penguin Classics edition will be just fine for nearly anybody. If you need the Harvard version, you already know it.

As a Greek, with the usual conceit of the species, Polybius felt astounded that the rustics over on the next peninsula ever amounted to anything, let alone masters of the known world. In little less than a generation they routed the Carthaginians out of Spain, Africa, and of course there was that little matter of Hannibal in Italy, that they successfully dealt with also - not to mention overcoming and assimilating the effete Greeks. To make sure his fellow Greeks knew about these things motivated Polybius to write his book.

Polybius wrote from first hand sources, interviewing witnesses, and witnessed the destruction of Carthage, himself - this makes him among the first to do so.

A difficulty with Polybius (and other classical authors) is that some of the material has been lost through the ravages of time. What is remaining has been painstakingly collected and published by Penguin as translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert.

The Penguin Classics edition is paperback, with 576 pages. A forward by F.W. Walbank, a renowned classics professor at the University of Liverpool, completes the package.

Well - that concludes this edition of Database Diving for Fun and Profit - now if I could only find Tacitus in the &%$#@ database ...


Recommended: Yes