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81-494: The stake-like valli (χάρακες) of which the vallum palisade was composed are described by Polybius (xviii.18.1, Excerpt. Antiq. xvii.14) and Livy (Liv. xxxiii.5), who make a comparison between the vallum of the Greeks and that of the Romans, very much to the advantage of the latter. Both used for valli young trees or arms of larger trees, with the side branches on them; but the valli of

162-674: A numerical system , called "the Polybius square ," mentioned in Hist. X.45.6 ff. . This idea also lends itself to cryptographic manipulation and steganography . Modern implementations of the Polybius square, at least in Western European languages such as English , Spanish , French , German and Italian , generally use the Roman alphabet in which those languages are written. However, Polybius himself

243-537: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

324-602: A certain hagiographic tone when writing of his friends, such as Scipio, and subject to a vindictive tone when detailing the exploits of his enemies, such as Callicrates, the Achaean statesman responsible for his Roman exile. As a hostage in Rome, then as client to the Scipios, and after 146 BC, a collaborator with Roman rule, Polybius was probably in no position to freely express any negative opinions of Rome. Peter Green advises that Polybius

405-516: A historian. According to Edward Tufte , he was also a major source for Charles Joseph Minard 's figurative map of Hannibal 's overland journey into Italy during the Second Punic War . In his Meditations On Hunting , Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset calls Polybius "one of the few great minds that the turbid human species has managed to produce", and says the damage to the Histories

486-472: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

567-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

648-543: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

729-671: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek , and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

810-609: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

891-425: A temporary marching camp; they would have had gaps between wide enough for an attacker to pass through with ease. One suggestion is that the "waist" facilitated them being tied together loosely in threes to form a kind of caltrop or Czech hedgehog that could be placed on the rampart (agger) of the vallum. It is likely that these would be augmented with whatever was to hand, such as tree branches or thorn bushes. In

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972-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

1053-626: Is "without question one of the gravest losses that we have suffered in our Greco-Roman heritage". The Italian version of his name, Polibio, was used as a male first name—for example, the composer Polibio Fumagalli —though it never became very common. The University of Pennsylvania has an intellectual society, the Polybian Society, which is named in his honor and serves as a non-partisan forum for discussing societal issues and policy. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes

1134-556: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

1215-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

1296-644: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

1377-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

1458-485: 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. According to this view, his work sets forth the course of history's occurrences with clearness, penetration, sound judgment, and, among the circumstances affecting the outcomes, he lays special emphasis on geographical conditions. Modern historians are especially impressed with

1539-549: 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. His beliefs about Philip's character led Polybius to reject the historian Theopompus ' description of Philip's private, drunken debauchery. 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. The consequences of bad leadership are also highlighted throughout

1620-570: Is known of Polybius's later life; he most likely accompanied Scipio to Spain, acting as his military advisor during the Numantine War . He later wrote about this war in a lost monograph . Polybius probably returned to Greece later in his life, as evidenced by the many existent inscriptions and statues of him there. The last event mentioned in his Histories seems to be the construction of the Via Domitia in southern France in 118 BC, which suggests

1701-568: Is lost as well. Another missing work was a historical monograph on the events of the Numantine War . The largest Polybian work was, of course, his Histories , of which only the first five books survive entirely intact, along with a large portion of the sixth book and fragments of the rest. Along with Cato the Elder (234–149 BC), he can be considered one of the founding fathers of Roman historiography . Livy made reference to and uses Polybius's Histories as source material in his own narrative. Polybius

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1782-567: Is noted for his work The Histories , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 BC, recording in detail events in Italy, Iberia, Greece, Macedonia, Syria, Egypt and Africa, and documented the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars among many others. Polybius's Histories is important not only for being

1863-745: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

1944-580: The Histories . 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. 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. Other important themes running throughout The Histories include

2025-503: The Third Macedonian War , 1,000 Achaeans (including Polybius) with suspect allegiances were interned in Rome and its surrounding area. Polybius's father, Lycortas, was a prominent advocate of neutrality during the Roman war against Perseus of Macedon in 171-168 BC. 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

2106-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

2187-506: The 16th century. Consequently, in the late 16th century, Polybius's works found a greater reading audience among the learned public. Study of the correspondence of such men as Isaac Casaubon , Jacques Auguste de Thou , William Camden and Paolo Sarpi reveals a growing interest in Polybius's works and thought during the period. Despite the existence of both printed editions in the vernacular and increased scholarly interest, however, Polybius remained an "historian's historian", not much read by

2268-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

2349-591: The Aetolians, the Carthaginians and the Cretans. Other historians perceive considerable negative bias in Polybius's account of Crete ; on the other hand, Hansen notes that the same work, along with passages from Strabo and Scylax , proved a reliable guide in the eventual rediscovery of the lost city of Kydonia . Polybius was responsible for a useful tool in telegraphy that allowed letters to be easily signaled using

2430-490: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

2511-496: The Greek vallus could easily be taken hold of by its large branches and pulled from its place, and when it was removed a large opening was left in the vallum. The Roman vallus, on the contrary, presented no convenient handle, required very great force to pull it down, and even if removed left a very small opening. The Greek valli were cut on the spot; the Romans prepared theirs beforehand.(Polyb. l.c.; Virg. Georg. iii.346, 347; Cic. Tusc. ii.16). They were made of any strong wood, but oak

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2592-563: The Greeks and the Macedonians). While Polybius was not the first to advance this view, his account provides the most cogent illustration of the ideal for later political theorists. A key theme of The Histories is good leadership, and Polybius dedicates considerable time to outlining how the good statesman should be rational, knowledgeable, virtuous and composed. The character of the Polybian statesman

2673-418: The Greeks were much larger and had more branches than those of the Romans, which had either two or three, or at the most four branches, and these generally on the same side. The Greeks placed their valli in the agger at considerable intervals, the spaces between them being filled up by the branches; the Romans fixed theirs close together, and made the branches interlace, and sharpened their points carefully. Hence

2754-646: The Hellenistic Mediterranean between 264 and 146 BC, and in its later books includes eyewitness accounts of the sack of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC, and the Roman annexation of mainland Greece after the Achaean War . While Polybius's Histories covers the period from 264 BC to 146 BC, it mainly focuses on the years 221 BC to 146 BC, detailing Rome's rise to supremacy in the Mediterranean by overcoming their geopolitical rivals: Carthage, Macedonia, and

2835-608: The Roman mode of circumvallation, of which some of the best examples are that of Carthage in modern-day Tunisia by Scipio ( Appian , Punic. 119, &c.), that of Numantia in modern-day Spain by Scipio (Appian, Hispan. 90), and that of Alesia in modern-day France by Caesar (Bell. Gall. vii.72, 73). The towers in such lines were similar to those used in attacking fortified places, but not so high, and of course not moveable. (Lipsius, de Milit. Rom. v.5, in Oper. iii. pp156, 157; Poliorc. ii.1, in Oper. iii.283). The vallum-building technique

2916-693: The Seleucid empire. Books I-II are The Histories ' introduction, describing events in Italy and Greece before 221/0 BC, including the First Punic War , Rome's wars with the Gauls, the rise of the Achaean League (Polybius's own constitution), and the re-establishment of Macedonian power in Greece under Antigonus III Doson and Philip V of Macedon . Books III-XXXIX describe in detail political and military affairs in

2997-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

3078-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

3159-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

3240-472: The destruction of Carthage, Polybius likely journeyed along the Atlantic coast of Africa, as well as Spain. After the destruction of Corinth in the same year, Polybius returned to Greece, making use of his Roman connections to lighten the conditions there. 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. In

3321-611: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

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3402-441: The distance of 16 feet, which surrounded the city in the form of a circle. Between the walls were the huts of the besiegers. The walls had battlements (ἐπάλξεις), and at every ten battlements was a tower , filling up by its depth the whole space between the walls. There was a passage for the besiegers through the middle of each tower. On the outside of each wall was a ditch (τάφρος). This description would almost exactly answer for

3483-663: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

3564-518: The framers of the United States Constitution . The leading expert on Polybius for nearly a century was F. W. Walbank (1909–2008), who published studies related to him for 50 years, including a long commentary of his Histories and a biography. Polybius was a close friend and mentor to Scipio Africanus the Younger , and had a lasting influence on his decision-making and life. Polybius

3645-556: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

3726-472: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

3807-458: The historical narrative: 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. In the twelfth volume of his Histories , Polybius defines the historian's job as the analysis of documentation, the review of relevant geographical information, and political experience. In Polybius's time,

3888-709: The later books of The Histories was preserved in Byzantine anthologies. His works reappeared in the West first in Renaissance Florence . 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. Niccolò Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy evinces familiarity with Polybius. Vernacular translations in French, German, Italian and English first appeared during

3969-512: The leading Mediterranean states, including affairs in ancient Rome and ancient Carthage , ancient Greece and ancient Macedonia , and the Seleucid empire and Egypt, explaining their increasing " συμπλοκή" (symplokē) or interconnectedness and how they each contributed to Rome's rise to dominance. Only books I-V survive in full; the rest are in varying states of fragmentation. Three discursive books on politics, historiography and geography break up

4050-428: The machines Archimedes created for the defense of Syracuse against the Romans, where Polybius praises the 'old man' and his engineering in the highest terms, and an analysis of the usefulness of astronomy to generals (both in the Histories ). Polybius was considered a poor stylist by Dionysius of Halicarnassus , writing of Polybius's history that "no one has the endurance to reach [its] end". Nevertheless, clearly he

4131-662: The manner in which Polybius used his sources, particularly documentary evidence as well as his citation and quotation of sources. Furthermore, there is some admiration of Polybius's meditation on the nature of historiography in Book 12. His work belongs, therefore, amongst the greatest productions of ancient historical writing. The writer of the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1937) praises him for his "earnest devotion to truth" and his systematic pursuit of causation. It has long been acknowledged that Polybius's writings are prone to

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4212-532: The most important teachers of constitutional theory. 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. More recently, thorough work on the Greek text of Polybius, and his historical technique, has increased the academic understanding and appreciation of him as

4293-433: The narrative of the historical events, Polybius also included three books of digressions. Book 34 was entirely devoted to questions of geography and included some trenchant criticisms of Eratosthenes , whom he accused of passing on popular preconceptions or laodogmatika . Book 12 was a disquisition on the writing of history, citing extensive passages of lost historians, such as Callisthenes and Theopompus . Most influential

4374-499: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

4455-453: The only Hellenistic historical work to survive in any substantial form, but also for its analysis of constitutional change and the mixed constitution. Polybius's discussion of the separation of powers in government, of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", all influenced Montesquieu 's The Spirit of the Laws , John Locke 's Two Treatises of Government , and

4536-417: The operations of a siege , when the place could not be taken by storm, and it became necessary to establish a blockade , this was done by drawing defences similar to those of a camp around the town , which was then said to be circumvallatum. Such a circumvallation, besides cutting off all communication between the town and the surrounding country, formed a defence against the sallies of the besieged. There

4617-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

4698-677: 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 . When addressing events after 220 BC, he continued to examine treaty documents, the writings of Greek and Roman historians and statesmen, eye-witness accounts and Macedonian court informants to acquire credible sources of information, although rarely did he name his sources (see, exceptionally, Theopompus ). Polybius wrote several works, most of which are lost. His earliest work

4779-464: The political and military affairs of Megalopolis, gaining experience as a statesman . In his early years, he accompanied his father while travelling as ambassador . He developed an interest in horse riding and hunting, diversions that later commended him to his Roman captors. In 182 BC, he was given the honour of carrying the funeral urn of Philopoemen , one of the most eminent Achaean politicians of his generation. In either 170 BC or 169 BC, Polybius

4860-419: The profession of a historian required political experience (which aided in differentiating between fact and fiction) and familiarity with the geography surrounding one's subject matter to supply an accurate version of events. Polybius himself exemplified these principles as he was well travelled and possessed political and military experience. He consulted and used written sources providing essential material for

4941-648: The public at large. Printings of his work in the vernacular remained few in number—seven in French, five in English ( John Dryden provided an enthusiastic preface to Sir Henry Sheers' edition of 1693) and five in Italian. Polybius's political analysis has influenced republican thinkers from Cicero to Charles de Montesquieu to the Founding Fathers of the United States . John Adams , for example, considered him one of

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5022-440: The role of Fortune in the affairs of nations, how a leader might weather bravely these changes of fortune with dignity, the educational value of history and how it should demonstrate cause and effect (or apodeiktike ) to provide lessons for statesmen, and that historians should be "men of action" to gain appropriate experience so as to understand how political and military affairs are likely to pan out ( pragmatikoi ). Polybius

5103-497: The square, a letter could be deduced. In The Histories , Polybius specifies how this cypher could be used in fire signals, where long-range messages could be sent by means of torches raised and lowered to signify the column and row of each letter. This was a great leap forward from previous fire signaling, which could send prearranged codes only (such as, 'if we light the fire, it means that the enemy has arrived'). Other writings of scientific interest include detailed discussions of

5184-404: The square, the final "5,5" code point encodes the spaces in between words. Alternatively, it can denote the end of a sentence or paragraph when writing in continuous script. Five numbers are then aligned on the outside top of the square, and five numbers on the left side of the square vertically. Usually these numbers were arranged 1 through 5. By cross-referencing the two numbers along the grid of

5265-470: The succeeding years, Polybius resided in Rome , completing his historical work while occasionally undertaking long journeys through the Mediterranean countries in the furtherance of his history, in particular with the aim of obtaining firsthand knowledge of historical sites. He apparently interviewed veterans to clarify details of the events he was recording and was similarly given access to archival material. Little

5346-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

5427-487: The writings of Pseudo-Lucian may have some grounding in fact when they state, "[Polybius] fell from his horse while riding up from the country, fell ill as a result and died at the age of eighty-two". The Histories is a universal history which describes and explains the rise of the Roman Republic as a global power in the ancient Mediterranean world . The work documents in detail political and military affairs across

5508-475: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

5589-418: Was Book 6, which describes Roman political, military, and moral institutions, which he considered key to Rome's success; it presented Rome as having a mixed constitution in which monarchical , aristocratic and popular elements existed in stable equilibrium. This enabled Rome to escape, for the time being, the cycle of eternal revolutions ( anacyclosis ) faced by those with singular constitutions (i.e. many of

5670-401: 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. In addition, Polybius wrote an extensive treatise entitled Tactics , which may have detailed Roman and Greek military tactics . Small parts of this work may survive in his major Histories , but the work itself

5751-430: 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. He narrated his history based upon first-hand knowledge. The Histories capture the varied elements of the story of human behavior: nationalism , xenophobia , duplicitous politics, war, brutality, loyalty, valour, intelligence, reason and resourcefulness. Aside from

5832-618: Was among the members of the Scipionic Circle . When Scipio defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War , Polybius remained his counsellor. 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. Following

5913-559: Was born around 198 BC in Megalopolis , Arcadia , when it was an active member of the Achaean League . The town was revived, along with other Achaean states, a century before he was born. Polybius's father, Lycortas , was a prominent, land-owning politician and member of the governing class who became strategos (commanding general) of the Achaean League. Consequently, Polybius was able to observe first hand during his first 30 years

5994-641: Was chronicling Roman history for a Greek audience, to justify what he believed to be the inevitability of Roman rule. Nonetheless, Green considers Polybius's Histories the best source for the era they cover. For Ronald Mellor , Polybius was a loyal partisan of Scipio , intent on vilifying his patron's opponents. Adrian Goldsworthy , while using Polybius as a source for Scipio's generalship, notes Polybius's underlying and overt bias in Scipio's favour. H. Ormerod considers that Polybius cannot be regarded as an 'altogether unprejudiced witness' in relation to his bêtes noires ;

6075-466: Was detained there for 17 years. 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 (who had been adopted by the eldest son of Scipio Africanus ). Polybius remained on cordial terms with his former pupil Scipio Aemilianus and

6156-473: Was elected hipparchus (cavalry officer) and was due to assist Rome militarily during the Third Macedonian War , although this never came about. This office was the second highest position of the Achaean League and often presaged election to the annual strategia (chief generalship). Polybius's political career was cut short in 168 BC, however; as a consequence of the final defeat of the Antigonid kingdom in

6237-523: Was later taken by neighbouring people, such as the Byzantines and the Goths . Examples of valla include: The word vallus is sometimes used as equivalent to vallum (Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii.63). Polybius Polybius ( / p ə ˈ l ɪ b i ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Πολύβιος , Polýbios ; c.  200  – c.  118 BC ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period . He

6318-506: Was often a double line of fortifications, the inner against the town, and the outer against a force that might attempt to raise the siege. In this case the army was encamped between the two lines of works. This kind of circumvallation, which the Greeks called ἀποτειχισμός and περιτειχισμός, was employed by the Peloponnesians in the siege of Plataea ( Thucyd . ii.78, iii.20‑23). Their lines consisted of two walls (apparently of turf ) at

6399-421: Was preferred. While on the march, each soldier carried three or four strong wooden stakes each at least 1.5 m (5 ft) long and pointed at both ends. A number of these have been found in excavations, sufficiently well-preserved to show that they were "waisted", that is narrowed at the centre. It is clear that these could not have been used on their own to form the palisade of the vallum constructed around

6480-429: Was widely read by Romans and Greeks alike. He is quoted extensively by Strabo writing in the 1st century BC and Athenaeus in the 3rd century AD. His emphasis on explaining causes of events, rather than just recounting events, influenced the historian Sempronius Asellio . Polybius is mentioned by Cicero and mined for information by Diodorus , Livy , Plutarch and Arrian . Much of the text that survives today from

6561-434: Was writing in Greek, and would have implemented his cipher square in the Greek alphabet. Both versions are shown here. In the Polybius square, letters of the alphabet were arranged left to right, top to bottom in a 5 × 5 square. When used with the 26-letter Latin alphabet two letters, usually I and J, are combined. When used with the Greek alphabet, which has exactly one fewer letters than there are spaces (or code points) in

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