Product Description
The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200 - 118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to be dominated by Rome. Opening with the Punic War in 264 BC, he vividly records the critical stages of Roman expansion: its campaigns throughout the Mediterranean, the temporary setbacks inflicted by Hannibal and the final destruction of Carthage. An active participant of the politics of his time as well as a friend of many prominent Roman citizens, Polybius drew on many eyewitness accounts in writing this cornerstone work of history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

A horribly butchered version of Polybius' Histories
Several reviewers have commented on the fragmentary nature of this assuming it to be the result of the loss of much of Polybius' work.But the main "loser" of this work is Penguin itself, which has hacked this edition to death.
The real reason for how fragmentary this book is because Penguin removes signifigant amounts of "less relevant material."Considerable background on Carthage is missing, in particular the mercenary war and much of the Sicilian action in the Punic Wars.This particular edition leaves out large chunks of the extant Polybius, in favor of the high lights with Hannibal, and for some reason the Aetolian League being considered more important than Carthage.

Even worse is that nowhere in the book is it made clear what is missing, it is treated as a seamless narrative even when gaping holes are left.At various points Polybius discusses the plan of the book, mentioning whole sections that have been cut out, this is the only indication if this volume was all you saw that these things were left out by the editors.

I know it is much pricier and less convenient, but if you are actually interested in details you would be much better off getting the Loeb editions, even with their very dry and stiff translations.

The contents
No need to wade into an already rich reviewers' debate on the quality of this abstract from Polybius. What this selection does contain:

· The account of the First Punic War, in full.
· Roman expansion in Illyria and Cisalpine Gaul between the first two Punic Wars.
· The Hannibalic campaign of the Second Punic War.
· Scipio's campaign in Africa marking the end of the Second Punic War.
· Polybius' famous piece on the Roman constitution.
· Selected background on the Greek leagues and Greek strife leading to the Second Macedonian War.
· The supposed treaty between Hannibal and Philip V of Macedon.
· Extracts on the diplomacy leading to the Second Macedonian War.
· Considerations on the chronicler Timaeus.
· Various short extracts on the 200-146BC period of Roman expansion.

What this does not include:

· The story of the mercenary revolt at Carthage.
· Most of the (admittedly repetitive) Greek background of warfare and diplomacy between the leagues and with Macedon.
· Most of the Roman campaign in Spain of the Second Punic War.
· The harangues by Hannibal and the Roman generals before Cannae.
· The context in the Greek East and the triangular fight between the Hellenistic monarchs Philip V, Antiochus and Ptolemy.
· Polybius' explanation of his historical method.
· The end of Second Macedonian War and the key battle of Cynoscephalae.
· The account of the wars with Perseus of Macedon and with Antiochus, by which Rome came to dominate the Greek East.
· The account of the Third Punic War and the fall of Carthage.
· The account of the taking of Corinth (note that Polybius was supposedly present at both these last two events).

Altogether, this is a rather incomplete abstract, then, of Polybius' account of Rome's rise to supremacy in the Mediterranean world. Polybius is widely regarded as one of the most rigorous, well informed, and credible ancient historians of the period.

Very nice edition
For a basic history student, this is a great edition of Polybius's work.The translation is quite readable, and the material seems reasonably well selected.The work is also generally important for the study of ancient Rome.

Of course folks should be aware that this is an abridged version, and that Polybius's works have survived only in part.However, unless you need an unabridged edition, this is worth getting and reading.

Butchered by Penguin
Get the Loeb edition instead. Penguin is not selling the entire work of Polybius here, but rather the sections that pertain to their "Rise of the Roman Empire" theme. If you're looking for any information on the Macedonian successor states of Alexander, look elsewhere, because Penguin cut it out of this edition.

The only thing that saves this book from the abyss of the single star is that it is very readable, which is a major compliment for Polybius, who is one of antiquity's drier historians. It also has good appendices and a better index than some other Penguin books. (Tacitus, I'm looking at you.)

If you're looking for Hannibal, here he is.
The overwhelming majority of this book is about the Second Punic War, although it does describe the other two Punic Wars at the beginning and end. But basically, unless you're looking for an account of the Hannibalic War, there's little else to be found here. I found the history of the Celts from the Sack of Rome in 390 BCE to the Battle of Telamon in 225 BCE and their use in Hannibal's army thereafter to be particularly useful, but it seems as though everything else was cut out of this book. At least some of this was done deliberately by Penguin and the translator, as he leaves footnotes saying "These debates have been omitted." This is unacceptable in its own, but I think the lack of other information is also due either to the omission of these things by Polybius himself, or by the transcribers that have carried his works into our own times. Whatever the case is, this book is wholly unhelpful for a historian outside of researching Hannibal. ... Read more

Product Description
Written in the 2nd century by the Greek historian Polybius, "The Histories" is a multi-volume work detailing many of the events, people, and ideas of the Hellenistic Period. While his focus is the space of time in which ancient Rome became a world power from 220 to 167 BC, Polybius also discusses his role as a 'pragmatic historian', a discourse on fate (called tyche), and the superiority of the mixed constitution. Though all forty volumes have not survived to the present day, the complete books extant today cover the affairs of all the important nations of the time, including Egypt, Greece, and Spain, as well as the first and second Punic Wars. Polybius speaks at length on the government of the Romans, citing it as the reason for Rome's success as a force of the world. Though it includes a couple of digressions concerning lesser issues of the time, "The Histories" has proven and continues to be a valuable text when studying the Hellenistic time period and manner of writing. ... Read more

Product Description
Here is the first new translation for over thirty years of Polybius' Histories, the major source for our knowledge of the Eternal City's early rise to power, covering the years of the Second Punic War, the defeat of Hannibal, and Rome's pivotal victories in the Mediterranean. Polybius, himself a leading Greek politician of the time, attributes Rome's success to the greatness of its constitution and the character of its people, but also allows Fortune a role in shaping world events. This new translation by Robin Waterfield includes the first five books in their entirety, and all of the fragmentary Books 6 and 12. Brian McGing's lucid introduction discusses the period covered by the Histories, Polybius' major role in the reconstruction of Greece after the defeat of the Achaean League, the themes and subject matter of the individual books, Polybius' outspoken views on how (and how not), and his significance for historiography. The book also includes succinct, clear notes, maps, a glossary, and an index of proper names. ... Read more

Product Description

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BCE) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BCE, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

Customer Reviews (1)

The Loeb Classical Library's Polybius and you- It all depends.
The purpose of this review is two-fold. I want to speak to the merits of the Loeb edition of Polybius as opposed to the Penguin or the Oxford World's Classic edition. I also want to speak to the pleasure of reading the first volume of Polybius.

The Loeb Classical Library editions (hereafter simply Loeb's)are diglots- the original Greek or Latin is on the left page and the English translation is on the right. The Loeb's thus have several purposes but one of the main ones is to establish an authoritative text in the original work. This is important in this case as this new edition of the Loeb's Polybius is the result of work that F.W. Walbank did on the text and annotation between 1964 and 1993. Thus the improvements over the original Loeb edition are to the Greek text, the translation and the annotation. That part of the work was completed by Christian Habicht over the last few years. Habicht also contributed a useful introduction and a good bibliography of the recent scholarly work on Polybius.
The Loeb's are also complete; at least, they are as complete as what we have. Polybius' History ran to 40 books. We have the first five in their entirety. Of the rest, we have only fragments, quotes in other authors, and in the case of Books 17 and 40 we have nothing. The Loebs have pulled it all together including some material not in the earlier edition. The result is the only complete Polybius in English of which I know. Both the Penguin and the Oxford Edition edit out a lot. For example, the Penguin edits out the whole of Books 4 and 5. I suspect that their reason is that the focus in those books in on Greece, Egypt and the Near East.
Here is your basic comparison- the other two editions are much cheaper, feature new translations by good translators (I should qualify that- I cannot read Greek but Waterford and Scott-Kilvert are both well-respected from what I read), have maps and timelines, etc. They are fine for most students of Polybius. I wish the Loeb's went in for maps and timelines. They are useful but most of that can be found on the Internet.
The editing- aye, there's the rub. Ancient historians approached history differently than we do. Their purposes are more moral, more propaedeutic to the role of citizen than are those of our historians. Therefore the editing sometimes cuts out what is most characteristic of an author in order to edit it to our standards. A good example is what the Grand Maroons of Penguin did with their Plutarch edition.
One of the things that Polybius states is unique to his Histories is that it is a universal history. He is tying the histories of all of the known world together in his narrative of the rise of Rome. The Penguin editions destroys that purpose to focus on Rome.
The choice is yours. It is the Loeb for me.

Part of the reason behind that choice is that I like Polybius. His is a fairly plain style and he tends to avoid dramatics. He lived through many of the events of his history and within several generations of all of them. He had good access to many of the main actors, to documents long since lost and even visited many of the sites of his history (he walked the same route through the Alps as had Hannibal) all as part of his research.
The Books 1 and 2 of this volume are preparing the educated Roman and Greek (his intended readers) for the main body of his history. He covers the history of the First Punic War, the civil war that Carthage fought against a combined force of Libyans and mercenaries immediately after the First Punic War, and some of the wars among the early Balkan and Greek peoples during the same period (circa 280 to 220 BC). He also canvases the early history of how the Roman came to dominate Italy, their history with the Gauls and the geography of Italy. I have read some of the history in the first decade of Livy and in Plutarch as well as some secondary sources so I found all this fairly easy to follow. If you have no background in Roman history, be prepared to hop on the web to research the background info.
Polybius has several themes that he interweaves into his narrative. He wants to understand why the Romans, alone among the people of the world unto then, were able in a very short space of time to come to dominate most of the known (to Polybius) world. One of his explanatory themes is that the Romans have superb institutions. In part because of those institutions, the Romans were an energetic, spirited people both virile and uncorrupted. I started to mark the text S&ER for all the times he talked about the spirit and excellences of the Romans. (It should be noted that he is a huge fan of the Achaean League as well (see II.38 for an example). This is the home government that Polybius served. In fact, I got the idea several times that Polybius was holding up the excellences of his home government for the Romans to see as a paragon for improvement.
Finally, one other quality of Polybius should be noted. He likes to trash his competitors. He attacks Phylarchus from II.56-63. Polybius chides Phylarchus for being biased, for over-dramatization and for making up speeches. This last bit is particularly cheeky since Polybius has long been accused of the same thing.

There you have it. I recommend the Loeb's and I recommend Polybius. Like many of the ancient historians he is an amazing mirror on our own time. We have changed some since his time and, in some ways, not so much. Polybius helps to sort that out.
Finally, as always, I am no expert in Roman history. If I have made any errors of fact, let me know in the comments where they will stand testimony to the folly of hoping to get it right. ... Read more

Product Description

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BCE) was born into a leading family of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea) and served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favoring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was held hostage in Rome, where he became a friend of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, especially Scipio Aemilianus, whose campaigns, including the destruction of Carthage, he later attended. Late in his life he became a trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans; helped in the discussions that preceded the final war with Carthage; and after 146 was entrusted by the Romans with the details of administration in Greece.

Polybius’ overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did. The main part of his history covers the years 264–146 BCE, describing the rise of Rome, her destruction of Carthage, and her eventual domination of the Greek world. It is a great work: accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, and full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, the causes of events, and the character of peoples. It is a vital achievement of the first importance despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of its original forty books have reached us.

For this edition, W. R. Paton’s excellent translation, first published in 1922, has been thoroughly revised, the Büttner-Wobst Greek text corrected, and explanatory notes and a new introduction added, all reflecting the latest scholarship.

Customer Reviews (1)

On Polybius: Structure, Themes and Method, O My!
In my review of Volume 1, I railed a little at the Penguin edition of Polybius for providing an edited version of this work. I want to add some substance to that complaint. The Lords of Penguin provide a good (and, I believe, complete) edition of Livy-they should do the same for Polybius. Maybe with even better reason, for Polybius' work has a structure unlike any other I have come across yet in my reading of ancient historians. Allow me to explain.

Polybius is writing a universal history and he believes that he has invented the genre. And, he believes that he is able to do so because of the amazing accomplishments of the Roman Republic during the years 220-167BC. During that short period of time, Rome expands from Italy to dominate most of the world known to Polybius. For the first time, the history of one people became the history of all people.
The structure of his histories reflects the historical moment that he has recognized. He starts off in Books 1 and 2 setting up the prehistory of his story. He does this because he realizes that many of his Greek readers will not know the history of the First Punic War and the history between the Gauls and the Romans. (By the way, when I talk about Books, I am referring to Polybius' own divisions of which there were 40. When I talk about Volumes, I am referring to the the Loeb edition which has six volumes.) Books 3 and 4 are the contents of the volume under review.In Book 3, Polybius begins his history proper and covers the causes and beginnings of the Second Punic War, Hannibal's campaign in Spain, his crossing of the Alps and the war in Italy up to and including the battle of Cannae. Book 4 covers the Social War in Greece through 218 as well as wars in Crete, Rhodes and Byzantium. So these books cover the beginning of the process that led to Roman domination.

It is obvious that Polybius wrote with his whole plan in mind. There are frequent references to his overall plan of organization or how the story he is telling is related to another story as a precursor or as the result. He also frequently tells you how other events are related chronologically to what he is telling you now.
Polybius believed his organization is an effective means of conveying the themes he wants to get across. Throughout his book he points out the makeup of a good general (Polybius had been one for the Achaean League) or how the moral failings of a particular leader led to certain results. He does this even for leaders he admires such as the elder Aratus of Sicyon who in spite of his many great qualities was a disaster as a general (4.8.6- such citations refer to book, chapter, line).
Another favorite theme (as it is among many Greeks) is the fickleness of Fortune. Sometimes she just turns the whole world upside down as she did in the early 220s BC when new kings rose to the thrones of Macedon, the Seleucid Empire, Egypt, Cappodocia and Sparta. Polybius also comes back again and again to the spirit and energy of the Roman people as after the disaster at Cannae.
Another beloved theme is what makes a good historian- apparently it is someone who has much the same background as Polybius himself. Fancy that. But he does have much to say about historical method that seems to have been influential.

He believes that as much as possible one should write from experience especially in regards to military matters and geography. He frequently goes into digressions on geography trying to paint an organized picture in the reader's mind before he goes on to tell his histories (I find that I still need maps). In fact, he himself apparently walked the route that Hannibal took over the Alps for the purposes of writing his history.
Polybius has several other interesting traits as a historian. In 3.22-28, he relates the histories of the treaties between Carthage and Rome. He quotes them and tells the reader where they can be found. He is citing his sources for his independent research. Good habit, that. Modern historians still run a foul of that.
I don't mean to imply that his work is flawless. Far from it. He is radically wrong about some of the details of his history and he obviously made stuff up (some of the speeches). But in many ways, you can see the birth of much of modern historical method by reading these books.
So there you have it- some ideas about the structure of his work, his themes and his methods. I should mention that Polybius is also blessed by the quality of some of the contemporary studies of his work. Walbank, McGing, Champion and Luce all have much of worth for any student of Polybius. I intend to review some of their works in the near future. Anybody who wants to correct me on points of fact or opinion, please have at it.
Learn, must I.
... Read more

Product Description
Polybius' Histories is one of classical antiquity's great political narratives. Written in 40 books (of which only the first five are preserved in full), it originally set out to explain the dramatic rise of Rome in the half century from the war against Hannibal to the defeat and abolishment of the Macedonian kingdom in 167 BC. At a later stage, Polybius extended his coverage down to the Roman destruction of Carthage and Corinth in the year 146 BC. Although written in an ordinary Greek style, the work was composed with great care, clarity and skill, and provides a fascinating discourse on the politics of power. The author was himself a leading Greek politician and general who moved at ease among the most powerful men of the day and participated in many of the events that he describes. This volume provides an accessible introduction to this important work of classical literature. Beginning with an outline of its contents and organization, Brian McGing goes on to examine Polybius' theoretical approach to writing history and the careful artistry behind his work. Later chapters discuss Polybius' eventful life and how it affected his views on history and politics, and analyze the influential theorizing of book six of the Histories. In an epilogue, McGing chronicles the fate of Polybius' work after his death, from classical antiquity to the Renaissance to the American Revolution and up to the present. The volume includes detailed maps and a list of prominent persons. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A useful, solid intro or companion to Polybius
This useful volume is a member in the Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature series. The volumes in this series are devoted to individual works of classical literature, in this case the Histories of Polybius. If all of the other volumes in the series are as good as McGing, it will be a very strong series.

Polybius' Histories is our earliest surviving history of Rome during the Republic. It was a major source for Livy and Plutarch. Later on, it was influenced the thinking of Machiavelli, Montesquieu and our Founding Fathers.
McGing's book provides many things. First, it provides a useful scholarly apparatus. There is an excellent bibliography, two good maps, a list of the prominent people mentioned in the Histories with brief biographies and an outline of the Histories by book and chapter. At the end of each chapter is a guide to further reading. All of this is useful to any student of the work but especially to first timers like myself.

Amazon's listing allows you to see the Table of Contents but I want to give you a little more idea of what each chapter offers.
The first chapter provides an overview to the purpose and organization of the Histories. McGing introduces Polybius' idea that he is writing a "universal" history because he is writing about the first period of time in which all the events of the known world can be related to the history of one nation. Polybius wrote about the brief period of sixty or so years during which Rome expanded out from Italy and came to dominate the whole of the Mediterranean and beyond. McGing discusses various literary devices that Polybius uses throughout thework.

The second chapter deals with the subject of Polybius as an historian. McGing examines what influence predecessors like Thucydides, Herodotus and Xenophon had on Polybius as well as suggests what is unique or new to Polybius. McGing discusses the Polybius' intended audience (the political class of both Rome and Greece) as well as his fascination with accurate geographic detail. His attitudes toward some of his contemporaries and their methods are also discussed. This is one of the best chapters of the book.

The third chapter is a close examination of the rhetoric and writing techniques used in Books 4 and 5 of the Histories. This is best read after having read those sections of Polybius first. I suggest as always the Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius as it the only complete edition and you will miss none of the detail of McGing's exposition. (By the way, from what I read in the intro to the Penguin edition, those maroons completely eliminate those two books from their edition of Polybius.)

The fourth chapter is a fascinating look at Polybius life and at the sort of man that he felt the historian had to be. This is structured around Polybius' remark that a historian had to be the same sort of man as was Odysseus. This discussion leads to a more general one focused on whether Polybius felt that the Greece or the Rome of his own time was in decline.

The fifth chapter is an excellent summary and discussion of Book 6 of the Histories. This is probably the most famous section of the Histories. In it, Polybius discusses the "constitution" of the Roman Republic. I use quotation marks because the way the word constitution was used in Polybius's time is different from our own. Rome, of course, did not have a written constitution in the modern sense. It did have a governmental structure that had evolved over several hundred of years, a body of laws, a largely shared religion and outlook through which most of its citizens saw the world. All this and more constituted its "constitution". Polybius' theory suggested that there were three main types of government, each type of which had a good form and a degenerate form. The pairing were king-tyrant, aristocracy-oligarchy and democracy-mob rule. Mob rule culminated in a struggle of demagogues which led to chaos and civil strife out of which a king would emerge and the whole cycle would start over again. Polybius' suggestion was that what made Rome different was its mixed constitution. For it had evolved a governmental form that combined the best qualities of the king, the aristocracy and democracy. McGing sets this out very lucidly and discusses problems with the theory in terms of its consistency and use by Polybius. He also discusses possible influences on Polybius and outlines some of the people Polybius' discussion influenced. This book more than any other is Polybius' claim to fame and McGing makes it clear why. This chapter alone justifies the book.

The last chapter discusses the history of the text of Polybius, some of the difficulties of reading ancient texts and suggests some ways in which Polybius can still be usefully read today for reasons other than antiquarian.

My only real doubts center around McGing's discussion of Tyche (Fortuna) and the explanatory role of the goddess. McGing largely sees Tyche as a shorthand for "stuff we don't know about yet". Everything that we can understand we must exert every effort to gather all the evidence and experience that is necessary to do so. On p. 200 he does mention that sometimes Tyche is used as a sort of avenging fury. I think this is another case where a contemporary scholar misses the point of an ancient text because they cannot quite take the ancient's religion seriously.
But this is one short section (pp.195-201) and, doG knows, I may be completely wrong.

All in all a very good book which will serve most readers as a useful guide and companion. There are really only two books in English that currently could serve as an intro to Polybius. One is the Sather Lecture that F.W. Walbank delivered on Polybius (I promise a review soon). But that was published back in 1972 and has none of the scholarly apparatus that I mentioned earlier. So here is my suggestion based on what I know now. Read several of the Loebs, read McGing, more of the Loeb Polybius, the Walbank and so on. Sounds like a lot of work? So? Anything good takes time. Rome wasn't built in a day. Just ask Polybius.
... Read more

Product Description

Polybius (born ca. 208 BCE) of Megalopolis in the Peloponnese (Morea), served the Achaean League in arms and diplomacy for many years, favouring alliance with Rome. From 168 to 151 he was hostage in Rome where he became a friend of Aemilius Paulus and his two sons, and especially adopted Scipio Aemilianus whose campaigns he attended later. In late life he was trusted mediator between Greece and the Romans whom he admired; helped in the discussions which preceded the final war with Carthage; and, after 146, was entrusted by the Romans with details of administration in Greece. He died at the age of 82 after a fall from his horse.

The main part of Polybius's history covers the years 264–146 BCE. It describes the rise of Rome to the destruction of Carthage and the domination of Greece by Rome. It is a great work, accurate, thoughtful, largely impartial, based on research, full of insight into customs, institutions, geography, causes of events and character of people; it is a vital achievement of first rate importance, despite the incomplete state in which all but the first five of the forty books have reached us. Polybius's overall theme is how and why the Romans spread their power as they did.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Polybius is in six volumes.

Customer Reviews (1)

Polybius's Histories, Loeb Classical Library Edition
Great history of Rome, translation is okay. Includes the Greek language text on left page, English on right. Please note:This is one of six volumes! This is not clear from the description of the books.

ThePenguin version, a better/clearer translation, does not include the Greek.One volume, not complete. May be more accessible for most readers. Iscertainly less expensive! ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
A previously unknown portrait of the Italian architect in the role of illustrator and theorist on the militia. Published here for the first time are Palladio's preparatory materials for an illustrated edition of Polybius' Histories alongside Palladio's material for his edition of Julius Caesar' Commentaries, (1575). Long thought to have been lost, his original Polybius has now been recomposed by drawing on three manuscript copies: the mock-up used by Palladio to plan the edition, rediscovered in the London British Library in 1977; a second copy found in Florence in 1986 and a third exemplar only very recently found in the New York Public Library. Here the reproductions of the 43 etchings for the Polybius have been accompanied by 42 etchings which Palladio dedicated to Caesar's deeds. This offers us a complete picture of his effort to reconstruct those excellent features of ancient warfare on which Palladio wished to base his own proposals for reforming the contemporary Venetian militia, as well as to give a different point of view on the history of architecture. The volume includes contributions from several scholars including: Stephen Parkin, Sara Mazzarino, Marco Formisano, Luciano Pezzolo, Claudio Povolo, and Paolo Fiore. ... Read more

Product Description
Essential passages from the works of four "fathers of history"—Herodotus's History, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Xenophon's Anabasis, and Polybius's Histories. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Leaves you wanting for more
Dont be confused by the relatively low ranking, this book is good. The only trouble is that it only contains fragments of the greatest historians ever. Though this is what the editor set out to do, you will feel cheated by not having the whole story to read.If all you want is a glimpse at what made the ancient historians so special, this is the book for you.However, chances are that you will want the complete story as well, something this collection cant offer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Awaiting Polybius
I can not use Walbank's three volumes until I get the six Loeb Classics volumes of Polybius to read and study.This is forthcoming.

I think I should tell you, however, that I have wanted my own copies of Walbank's work for over thirty years and finally made the purchase.I am very interested in the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage and Polybius is the main historian of these events.The Roman Livy also wrote about this period, but he was a Johnny-come-lately and never had the chance to interview participants in these events like Polybius did.Polybius also accompanied the Roman army during the Third and final Punic War in 146 B.C. and witnessed the destruction of Carthage and the enslavement of its population.

I also have the Sather lecture volume by Walbank about Polybius.

The Walbank three volumes arrived ahead of the projected date of delivery in even better condition than the vendor said.I recommend him without reservation. ... Read more

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:INDEX The references are to Books and Chapters, except where the volume and page of this translation are indicated by vol.— /.—; Fr. indicates the minor fragments at the end of vol. it. Abba, town in Africa, 14, 6, 7 Abia, town in Messenia, 23, 17 Abila, town in Palestine, 6, 71 ; 16, 39 Abilyx, a Spaniard, 3, 98, 99 Abrupolis, a Thracian prince, 22, 8 Abydus, town in Asia Minor, on the Hellespont, 4, 44 ; 5, in ; 16, 29- 35 ; its situation and fall, 18, 2, 44 J 34, 7 Academy, the, 12, 261:; 16, 27 Acarnania, 4,6, 30,63,65,66 ; 5,3-5; 9, 34 ; 28, 4, 5 ; 30, 13 ; 32. 20 ; 89, 14 Acarnanians, 2, 6, 10, 45, 65, 66 ; 4, 5. 9, IS- 2S. 3. 63 : 6, 3-6, 13, 96 ; 9, 32, 38-40; 10, 41 ; 16, 32 ; 21, 29, 32 ; 24, 12 ; 28, 5 Acatides, a Theban runner, 39, 7 Acerrae, a town of the Insubres, 2, 34 Acesimbrotus of Rhodes, 18, i, 2 Achaeans, the, 1, 3, passim ; appealed to by the Epirotes, 2, 6, 9, 10, 12 ; the rise of their league in the Pelo- ponnese, 2, 37-70; assist Mes- senians against the Aetolians, and call in Philip V., 4, 1-19, 22 ; pro- claim war with Aetolians, 4, 25-27. See also 36, 59-85 ; agree to furnish Philip with subvention, 0, i ; join Philip in his invasion of Laconia, 6, 18-24! harassed by Aetolians, 5, 30, 35 ; elect Aratus after the incap-able Strategus Eperatus, 6, 91-95 ; make peace with the Aetolians, 5, 101-105 ; instructed in military exercises by Philopoemen, 10, 23 ; at war with Machanidas of Sparta, 11, 11-18 ; Philopoemen summons a levy at Tegea to invade Laconia, !' 36. 37 ; incline to Philip's part against Rome, 16, 38 ; send envoys to the congress at Xicaea, 18, 1-8 ; receive back Corinth by the advice of Flamininus, 18, 45 fin.; and Triphylia and He... ... Read more

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Polybius was a Greek statesman and political prisoner of Rome in the second century b.c.e. His Histories provide the earliest continuous narrative of the rise of the Roman Empire. In this original study informed by recent work in cultural studies and on ethnicity, Craige Champion demonstrates that Polybius's work performs a literary and political balancing act of heretofore unappreciated subtlety and interest. Champion shows how Polybius contrived to tailor his historiography for multiple audiences, comprising his fellow Greeks, whose freedom Rome had usurped in his own generation, and the Roman conquerors. Champion focuses primarily on the ideological presuppositions and predispositions of Polybius's different audiences in order to interpret the apparent contradictions and incongruities in his text. In this way he develops a "politics of cultural indeterminacy" in which Polybius's collective representations of political and ethnic groups have different meanings for different audiences in different contexts. Situating these representations in the ideological, political, and historical contexts from which they arose, his book affords new and penetrating insights into a work whose subtlety and complexity have gone largely unrecognized. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Superb for those who want to read more deeply
Craige Champion's Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories is not a great introduction to the reading of Polybius' Histories. I would recommend Brian McGing's book for that. However, for anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of what Polybius is doing in his Histories, Champion is an excellent choice.
My plan for this review is to reflect the three sections of Champion's book. The first part of the review will outline the theoretical framework that Champion brings to his reading of Polybius. Champion sees many complexities in Polybius that have to be carefully sorted out.
The second part of the review will show how Champion applies this framework to Book 6 of the Histories and to the question of whether Polybius saw Rome as having already entered a period of decline by the time he was writing.
The last section will speak shortly to Champion's third section and its explorations of the contemporary political contexts of the period of the composition of the Histories. Champion believes that it is only by understanding that political context that we can fully understand what Polybius was doing.
Finally, I want to venture a few qualms about Champion's theoretical structure and to suggest a few ways it could be broadened.
And by the way, because I am lazy, from now on Polybius will be P, Champion will be C, Polybius' Histories will be H and Champion's book will be CPPH.

For those of you who know their work, Champion's theoretical framework is a combination of Quentin Skinner, G.E.R. Lloyd and K.S. Sacks. C feels that Lloyd has established the use of polarity as one of the most dominant analytical resources of the ancient Greeks. In particular, C feels that whole of H is organized around the polarity of Hellene-barbarian. The end result is that P is able to create a "politics of cultural indeterminacy". This is done by making the Romans to sometimes appear to have the virtues of the Greek people and sometimes to have the failings of barbarians. Another way to see this polarity is to be rational, farsighted, courageous, and generous versus emotional, reactive, cowardly and greedy.
P uses this cultural indeterminacy because he is writing for several audiences simultaneously. He is writing to show the Roman governing elite how they appear to the Greeks and the Greeks how the Romans were able to be so successful in coming to dominance in the Mediterranean. In other words, C sees P as writing both for Romans who are suspicious of the Greeks and for Greeks who are chafing at being ruled by Romans.
Because he is writing for several audiences, P uses several rhetorical devices. P establishes a certain vocabulary for the barbarians. This vocabulary is also put to use on women, the masses and youth. This part of C argument is convincingly outlined in several appendices which catalog the use of certain terms and their cognates.
C also talks about the use of different authorial voices in H. Here C takes from the work of Sacks and talk about subjective and indirect historical writing. P is usually credited with being (along with Thucydides) the ancient historian most determined to write something approaching what we would call objective history. But C points out that P is also "by far the most intrusive narrator among the ancient historians" (p.26). In other words, P has a tendency to pop up and tell you what he thinks about somebody or something. But, in his indirect historian mode, P can also be more subtle and have the story or some character's speech tell you what P thinks.
Chapter 2 looks at the way that P uses his various devices to construct the ethnicities of various peoples along the Hellene-barbarian polarity. There are several peoples for whom P has no use. Anyone who reads the H, knows how he felt about Illyrians, Cretans and Aitolians. Toward others he was more ambiguous, e.g., Macedonians and Carthaginians. But most of the chapter is, of course, about the ways that the Romans and the Greeks regarded each other.

The second section of the book is for me the best. Chapter 3 is a brilliant dissection of P's Book 6- the one on the Roman "constitution". But P also discusses the Roman army camp, the funeral rites of the Romans and the way the Roman elite used their religion to keep the masses in line. Champion ties all these disparate parts together quite nicely.
One of the famous sections of Book 6 is P's discussion of how governments evolve from one form to the next in a natural process of decline. Chapters 4 and 5 of CPPH argue for one of C's most interesting themes. C. claims that P is arguing that Rome has already entered the process of decline. P is also writing a parallel history of the Achaean League within his larger Roman history. The Achaean League is in that same process of decline. I found this whole section of CPPH to be very convincing.

The final section of the book I suppose you could call the Skinnerian section of the book. In this section, C is outlining what he sees as the most relevant historical contexts of P's time for an understanding of H. C discusses the ideology of the Roman senatorial elite and their attitudes toward the deleterious effects of Greek culture. C also discusses some of the political maneuverings within the various factions of the Achaean League and how those factions might regard P and his work.

I mentioned that I had a few qualms about the theoretical framework that Champion brings to bear on P. I am not sure that I can agree with all of the interpretations that C makes in his third section. It sometimes seems as if he has P walking an impossible tightrope between appealing to both the Roman senatorial elite and the anti-Roman factions among Achaean politicians.
I do like his use of the work of Lloyd for no other reason than, if Lloyd is right, P would have no trouble recognizing some of the readings that C makes. I am just not sure but what other frameworks than Skinner's might have been more useful or revealing. I am very impressed with Richard White's work in The Middle Ground. I would love to see someone use it to elucidate the mutual (mis)understandings of the Romans and Greeks of the period.
And, by the Dog, can we please start using some Straussian reading resources when doing reading like this? I am not saying that anyone should take over Strauss' views on the history of political philosophy. But his writings on the techniques of esoteric writing are an enormous resource for anyone attempting to understand someone like P who is writing toward multiple audiences and who doesn't want all the different audiences to know what is going on.
I do not want to end of a churlish note. Let me end as I started. This is a wonderful book, full of insights and very suggestive of further study. Most of all, it will lead you back to Polybius for further reading and that is what all secondary literature should aim at. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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In Two Volumes. This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR’d book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more