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The Histories, Volume III: Books 5–8 (Loeb Classical Library) Hardcover – May 16, 2011

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Hellenistic history.

The historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BC) 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 BC, 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.

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

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  1. Print length
    624 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    May 16, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    4.25 x 1.2 x 6.37 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674996585
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674996588
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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“Polybius found a brilliant subject for his history in the Roman drive to supremacy in the Mediterranean. As an experienced Greek politician who lived as a hostage among the elite in Rome from 167 to 159 BC, he was ideally positioned to write it. He had formidable organizational powers, and he really did know what he was talking about. Without him, our understanding of the whole period and of the dynamics of Roman imperialism would be inconceivably impoverished.”―Denis Feeney, Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

William Roger Paton (1857–1921) was an independent scholar educated at Oxford and based in Samos.

F. W. Walbank was Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Christian Habicht is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press; Revised edition (May 16, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 624 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674996585
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674996588
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.25 x 1.2 x 6.37 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 10 ratings

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Carlos Herrera
5.0 out of 5 stars TOTALLY PROFESSIONAL
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2014
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Arch Stanton
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Historians of the Roman Republic
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2011
Since there are so many of these darn things the review shall be divided into three sections. First, a brief description of the Loeb series of books and their advantages/disadvantages. Second shall be my thoughts on the author himself, his accuracy, as well as his style and the style of his translator. This is of course only my opinion and should be treated as such. The final part shall review what this particular book actually covers.

The Loeb series date back to the turn of the last century. They are designed for people with at least some knowledge of Greek or Latin. They are a sort of compromise between a straight English translation and an annotated copy of the original text. On the left page is printed the text in Greek or Latin depending on the language of the writer and on the right side is the text in English. For somebody who knows even a little Greek or Latin these texts are invaluable. You can try to read the text in the original language knowing that you can correct yourself by looking on the next page or you can read the text in translation and check the translation with the original for more detail. While some of the translations are excellent mostly they are merely serviceable since they are designed more as an aid to translation rather than a translation in themselves. Most of them follow the Greek or Latin very closely. These books are also very small, maybe just over a quarter the size of your average hardcover book. This means that you'll need to buy more than just one book to read a complete work. They are also somewhat pricey considering their size. The Loeb Collection is very large but most of the more famous works can be found in better (and cheaper) translations elsewhere. If you want to read a rarer book or read one in the original language then you can't do better than the Loeb Editions.

There are six volumes of Polybius in the Loeb series. This includes all of his surviving works. Polybius was a Greek soldier who was captured by the Romans during the Roman conquest of Greece. He was a prisoner in Rome for several years where he became the personal friend of Scipio Aemilianus, the grandson of Scipio Africanus who defeated Hannibal and the future conqueror of Carthage. His work was meant to explain to the Greek world how Rome was able to conquer everyone within such a short period of time. He is about as accurate as ancient historians get. He wrote forty books of which only the first five are intact. Fortunately there are very good epitomes for most of the remaining books. There is an older Loeb  edition  published about 90 years ago. The translation may not be as readable but it is still good. The Penguin  edition  is horribly incomplete. The Loeb editions, whether old or new, are the way to go.

This book contains Book five, which is the last complete work of Polybius. It covers more Greek affairs from 220-216 BC. The rest of the books are in fragments. Book six outlines the Roman constitution and contains much valuable data on the working of the Republic. Book seven and eight go back to covering events in Italy and Sicily as the war with Hannibal continues.
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Greg Taylor
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic in both political philosophy and history.
Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2011
The following is a review I first wrote last summer for a previous editon of the Loeb Classical Library's third volume of Polybius' Histories. I have updated it with some info on the new edition which I have since bought and gone through for the changes.
First, some explanation about the Loeb Classical Library. The Loebs are diglots, i.e., they provide the text in the original Latin or Greek on the left page and the English translation on the right. They are usually considered the standard edition of many works of Roman and Greeks authors, helping to establish the standard text in the original language as well as providing translations. They usually have a minimum of scholarly apparatus- there are no maps and few notes.
The LCL seems to be in the process of reinventing itself. They are in the process of providing new translations of many of their established volumes. Translations that are more modern (sometimes more willing to be obscene), and have somewhat more of an scholarly apparatus. As a case in point, they are releasing a new edition of Polybius' Histories, our earliest extant history of the rise of Rome. The new translation by F.W. Walbank is based on the original by W.R. Paton but includes new Greek text, a more modern English, many more notes and nice bibliographies for further readings (Update on the bibliography-it is only in volume 1. However, the notes in all the subsequent volumes are based on it so it helps to have that volume when reading the later ones). It will undoubtedly remain the only complete English translation. The new translation of this volume has now been released.
As for the text of Polybius' work, we have the first five books (of forty) in their complete form, much of the sixth book and fragments from the remaining books to various degrees. Volume III of the Loeb edition contains the whole of book 5 and what remains of books 6-8. There is over fifty pages of new material in this edition some of which is from the notes. The new fragements are largely in Books 7 and 8 although there is some new material in Book 6. Books 7 and 8 remain fragmentary. It is one of the many tragedies of classical learning that we do not have a complete

For Polybius (hereafter simply "P.") is worth reading for many reasons. As I mentioned, his is the earliest history of Rome that has survived. Livy used P. as one of his major sources for his own history as did many historians that followed. Polybius' Histories influenced thinkers as different as Machiavelli and Madison.
One of the main reasons that P. remains essential reading is Book 6. Through out the first five books of his history, P. reiterated that his overarching theme was an exploration of how Rome was able to be the first political entity that was able to overwhelm the whole of the known world. And it had done so in a period of about 60 years. P. had stated that it was due to the excellence of Rome's constitution and it is in Book 6 that he describes that constitution and what made it so excellent.
The first thing to note is the use of the word "constitution". For the most part prior to the 18th century the word did not refer to a written document but to the combination of political institutional structure and the social norms of a country or city-state. To P. this was the single most important determinant of what the character of a people would be.
The second thing to note is that most ancient writers saw the rise and fall of states as a natural phenomena. A city would be born and, if it had a good constitution, would grow into greatness and then suffer through a process of decay. Throughout the whole of his history it is obvious that P. thought that Rome's apogee of greatness was reached during the Wars with Carthage and that afterwords, the city began a slow decline. The rate of growth and decline was largely determined by how rational the leaders of a city was.
There are many interwoven threads to the discussion of these themes by P. In what we have left of the book, there is a discussion of Rome's political institutions, the organization of the Roman army camp during a march, and the funeral rites of the Romans all are woven into the discussion. It is also evident after reading this book that P. is exemplifying part of the process in the rest of his history through the life of one man- Phillip V of Macedon.
What unfolds first in Book 6 is an excellent presentation of the different types of governmental forms- kingship, aristocracy and democracy and their degenerate forms- tyranny, oligarchy and mob rule. There is a discussion of how states are formed and first develop into kingdoms then degenerate into tyranny from there to revolt into aristocracy then to degenerate into an oligarchy then to revolt into democracy then to mob rule then back to the contests of strong men leading to kings and so on. P. states that only those states that have learned to mix the three basic forms together that provides checks and balances on the one, the few and the many manage to form a perfection of political organization that can last for hundreds of years. P. mentions the political reforms of Lycurgus in Sparta as creating such a state on the basis of the wisdom of one man and he argues that Rome manage to evolve into such a state due to their well reasoned responses by the elite to a series of crisis over time.
This discussion was enormously influential. Livy adopted it almost exactly, Machiavelli presents practically a carbon copy of it in the opening to his Discourse on Livy and John Adams praised Polybius as the best of the ancients on mixed government in the book he wrote on it hoping to influence our Constitutional Convention.
Then there is also the remarkable description of the layout of the camp that the Roman Army also used during this period. This layout has been described as almost hyperrationalistic. Every time any Roman army on the march camped it did so in exactly the manner P. described. This brings up a point that no one I have read it in my secondary meanderings through the scholarly literature has mentioned yet. Polybius mentions at one point, that coming into camp, everyone would know where to go and what to do. The camp, in effect, became a city with a known urbanscape no matter where the army was. It is my belief that what P. is doing in this section is really giving us the 'constitution' of the Roman Army and that it was also the excellencies of this constitution that allowed that army to be so successful.
Finally there is the discussion of the funeral rites. P. sees these and the whole of Roman religion in any entirely instrumental light. And a very Straussian one at that. The rites serve to inspire the youth to achieve greatness in the service of the state. Religion as a whole is there to keep the unreasoning masses in line.
All of these aspects of the Roman constitution are part of that whole which gave that people the ability to withstand the disaster of Cannae and to ruthlessly expand their dominion.

The Books on either side of Book 6 in this volume are political histories of the whole of the known world in the late third century B.C. Books 7 and 8 because of their especially fragmentary nature are particularly frustrating.
As a whole, however, I cannot recommend this book enough. P. is great company. He is plain-spoken but tells a gripping tale that is based on an enormous amount of personal research and his own amazing experience. He is opinionated and ornery and very discerning. He is, in his own way, as appealing as any of the ancients I have read. Give him a try.
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5.0 out of 5 stars 希望通りで、全く問題がありません。
Reviewed in Japan on October 17, 2021
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一時的に品切れでしたが、比較的短期間で入手出来て、大変に有り難いと思いました。こうした迅速な対処は、一般の書店では望めないものですね。
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