See also:

• POLYBIUS (c. 204–122 B.C.)

As the son of Lycortas he was naturally brought into See also:

• CLOSE
• CLOSE (from Lat. clausum, shut)
• CLOSE, MAXWELL HENRY (1822-1903)

In the next See also:

• YEAR

It placed within his reach opportunities for a close study of Rome and the See also:

• ROMANS
• ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE

14). An even more difficult task was that entrusted to him by the Roman authorities themselves, of persuading the Achaeans to acquiesce in the new regime imposed upon them by their conquerors, and of setting the new machinery in working See also:

• ORDER
• ORDER (through Fr. ordre, for earlier ordene, from Lat. ordo, ordinis, rank, service, arrangement; the ultimate source is generally taken to be the root seen in Lat. oriri, rise, arise, begin; cf. " origin ")
• ORDER, HOLY

This See also:

• EMPIRE

Polybius therefore claims for his history that it will take a comprehensive, view of the whole course of events in the civilized world, within the limits of the period (i. 4). He thus aims at placing before his readers at each See also:

• STAGE (Fr. 6/age; from Lat. stare, to stand)

He must remember that the historian should not write as the dramatist does to See also:

• CHARM (through the Fr. from the Lat. carmen, a song)

22 seq. Among the many defects which he censures in previous historians, not the least serious in his eyes are their inattention to the political and geographical surroundings of the history (ii. 16, iii. 36), and their neglect duly to set forth the causes of events (iii. 6). Polybius is equally explicit as regards the personal qualifications necessary for a good historian, and in this respect too his practice is in close agreement with his theory. Without a personal knowledge of affairs a writer will inevitably distort the true relations and importance of events (xii. 28). Such experience would have saved accomplished and fluent Greek writers like See also:

• TIMAEUS (c. 345—c. 250 B.e.)

All available See also:

• EVIDENCE (Lat. evidentia, evideri, to appear clearly)

Polybius is careful constantly to remind us that he writes for those who are ciao e9eirlovers of knowledge, with whom truth is the first See also:

• CONSIDERATION (from Lat. considerare, to look at closely, examine, generally taken to be from con-, and the base seen in sidus, sideris, a star, the word being supposed to be originally an astrological or astronomical term)

14) ; but it is unpardonable, he says, for the historian to set anything whatever above the truth. And on the whole, Polybius must be allowed here again to have practised what he preached. It is true that his See also:

• AFFECTION (Lat. ad, and facere, to do something to, sc. a person)

He notices the incipient degeneracy of Rome after 146 (xviii. 85). He endeavours to hold the See also:

• BALANCE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. bilantia, an apparatus for weighing, from bi, two, and lanx, a dish or scale)

The Romans had been fitted by. their previous struggles for the See also:

• CONQUEST

It is, indeed, often impressive from the evident earnestness of the writer, and from his sense of the gravity of his subject, and is unspoilt by See also:

• RHETORIC (Gr. psroperctj TEXvq, the art of the orator)

4). Livy, however, notwithstanding the extent to which he used his writings (see LIvy), speaks of him in such qualified terms as to suggest the See also:

• IDEA (Gr. Ibia, connected with i&eiv, to see; cf. Lat. species from specere, to look at)

20; Arrian, Tactica; Aelian, Tact. i.). The geographical treatise, referred to by Geminus, is possibly identical with the thirty-See also:

• FOURTH

W. Capes, The History of the Achaean League (See also:

• LONDON

353-387 (London, 1898), and in Appendix II. to Selections from Polybius pp. 642-668 (Oxford, 1888). (H. F.