HKB
[Sidenote: Achaia.]
The second book contains an account of the origin of the war between Rome and Illyricum; of the Gallic or Celtic wars from the earliest times; and a sketch of Achaean history to the end of the Cleomenic war. The first two of these must have been compiled with great labour from various public documents and family records, as well as in part from Pictor. The sketch of Achaean history rested mainly, as far as it depends on books, on the Memoirs of Aratus; while he studied only to refute the writings of Phylarchus the panegyrist of Cleomenes. He complains of the partiality of Phylarchus: but in this part of the history it was perhaps inevitable that his own views should have been coloured by the prejudices and prepossessions of a politician, and one who had been closely connected from boyhood with the patriotic Achaean party, led by Philopoemen, which was ever at enmity with all that Cleomenes did his utmost to establish.
[Sidenote: Sicilian history.]
For his account of Sicilian affairs he had studied the works of Timaeus of Tauromeniun. Although he accuses him bitterly, and at excessive length,[89] of all the faults of which an historian can be guilty, he yet confesses that he found in his books much that was of assistance to him[90] in regard both to Magna Graecia and Sicily; for which he also consulted the writings of Aristotle, especially it appears the now lost works on Polities (πολιτείαι), and Founding of Cities (κτίσεις). The severity of his criticism of Timaeus is supported by later authors. He was nicknamed ἐπιτίμαιος, in allusion to the petulance of his criticism of others;[91] and Plutarch attacks him for his perversion of truth and his foolish and self-satisfied attempts to rival the best of the ancient writers, and to diminish the credit of the most famous philosophers.[92]
[Sidenote: Greek history.]
As far as we possess his writings, we find little trace in Polybius of a reference to the earliest historians. Herodotus is not mentioned, though there may be some indications of acquaintance with his work;[93] nor the Sicilian Philistus who flourished about B.C. 430. Thucydides is mentioned once, and Xenophon three times. Polybius was engaged in the history of a definite period, and had not much occasion to refer to earlier times; and perhaps the epitomator, in extracting what seemed of value, chose those parts especially where he was the sole or best authority.
[Sidenote: Macedonia.]
For the early history of Macedonia, he seems to have relied mostly on two pupils of Isocrates, Ephorus of Cumae and Theopompus of Chios; though the malignity of the latter deprived his authority of much weight.[94] He also studied the work of Alexander’s friend and victim, Callisthenes; and vehemently assailed his veracity, as others have done. More important to him perhaps were the writings of his own contemporaries, the Rhodians Antisthenes and Zeno; though he detects them in some inaccuracies, which in the case of Zeno he took the trouble to correct: and of Demetrius of Phalerum, whose writings he seems to have greatly admired.
[Sidenote: Egypt and Syria.]
For the contemporary history of Egypt and Syria he seems to have trusted principally to personal inquiry. He expressly (2, 37) declines entering on the early history of Egypt on the ground of its having been fully done by others (referring, perhaps, to Herodotus, Manetho, and Ptolemy of Megalopolis). For the Seleucid dynasty of Syria he quotes no authorities.
[Sidenote: Geography.]