HKB
the definite object of inspection and inquiry; and, lastly, seeing and questioning the survivors of great battles, or the men who had played a leading part in conspicuous political transactions.
From his earliest youth Polybius had enjoyed some special advantages in these respects. As he himself says, “the events in Greece fell within his own generation, or that immediately preceding his own,—and he therefore could relate what he had seen, or what he had heard from eye-witnesses” (4, 2). And of the later period he “was not only an eye witness, but in some cases an actor, and in others the chief actor” (3, 4). When he was probably under twenty we hear of his being present at an important interview between Philopoemen and Archon;[72] and his election as hipparch in B.C. 169, soon after he reached the legal age, was in consequence of his having thrown himself with vigour into the practical working of the cavalry under Philopoemen. In regard to Roman history and polity, we have Cicero’s testimony that he was bonus auctor in primis,[73] and more particularly in regard to chronology, quo nemo fuit in exquirendis temporibus diligentius.[74] Nor is this praise undeserved, as is shown by his energy in pushing minute and personal inquiries. Thus he learnt the details of the Hannibalic war from some of the survivors of those actually engaged; visited the localities, and made the pass of the Alps used by Hannibal;[75] studied and transcribed the stele or bronze tablet placed by Hannibal on the Lacinian promontory;[76] travelled through Libya, Spain, Gaul, and the seas which washed their shores (perhaps even as far as Britain), in order to give a true account of them.[77] Conversed with Massanissa on the character of the Carthaginians, as well as with many of the Carthaginians themselves.[78] Carefully observed Carthagena.[79] Inspected the records at Rhodes,[80] and the Archives at Rome;[81] and studied and transcribed the treaties preserved there.[82] Visited Sardis,[83] Alexandria,[84] and Locri Epizephyrii.[85] To this, which is by no means an exhaustive account of his travels and inquiries, may be added the fact that his intimacy with the younger Africanus, grandson by adoption and nephew by marriage of the elder Scipio, must have placed at his disposal a considerable mass of information contained in the family archives of the Scipios, as to the Hannibalian war, and especially as to the campaigns in Spain.[86]
Such were some of the means by which Polybius was enabled to obtain accurate and trustworthy information.
[Sidenote: Use of previous writers by Polybius.]
It remains to inquire how far Polybius availed himself of the writings of others. He looks upon the study of books as an important part of an historian’s work, but, as we have seen, not the most important. His practice appears to have been conformable to his theory. The greater part of his information he gained from personal observation and personal inquiry. Nevertheless, some of his history must have been learnt from books, and very little of it could have been entirely independent of them. Still, as far as we have the means of judging from the fragments of his work that have come down to us, his obligations to his predecessors are not as extensive as that of most of those who wrote after him; nor is the number of those to whom he refers great.[87]
[Sidenote: The Punic wars.]
Of his preliminary sketch contained in books 1 and 2, the first book, containing the account of the first Punic war and the Mercenary war, appears to have been derived mainly from the writings of Fabius Pictor (b. circ. B.C. 260), and Philinus of Agrigentum (contemporary and secretary of Hannibal). He complains that they were violent partisans, the one of Rome, the other of Carthage.[88] But by comparing the two, and checking both by documents and inscriptions at Rome, he, no doubt, found sufficient material for his purpose.
[Sidenote: Illyrians and Gauls.]
[Sidenote: Achaia.]