Book 34

, 8.

[143] ἱστορήσαντας. There seems no need to give this word the unusual sense of _narratum legere_ here, as some do.

[144] Sicca Venerea, so called from a temple of Venus, was notorious for its licentiousness. Valer. Max. 2, 6, 15.

[145] A line of the text appears to have been lost, probably containing an allusion to Hiero.

[146] The southernmost point of Italy is Leucopetra (Capo dell' Armi). Cocinthus (Punta di Stilo) is much too far to the north; yet it may have been regarded as the conventional point of separation between the two seas, Sicilian and Ionian, which have no natural line of demarcation.

[147] Really 3/16; for 16 ases = 6 obols (one drachma or denarius) see 34, 8. The Sicilian medimnus is about a bushel and a half; the metretes 8½ gallons.

[148] Livy, 5, 17, 33-49; Plutarch, _Camillus_, 16; Mommsen, _History of Rome_, vol. i. p. 338 (Eng. tr.)

[149] Compare the description of the Gauls given by Caesar, B.G. 6, 11-20. They had apparently made considerable progress in civilisation by that time, principally perhaps from the influence of Druidism. But the last characteristic mentioned by Polybius is also observed by Caesar (15), _omnes in bello versantur atque eorum ut quisque est genere copiisque amplissimus, ita plurimos circum se ambactos clienteeque habet. Hanc unam gratiam potentiamque habent._ Even in the time of Cato they were at least beginning to add something to their warlike propensities. Or, 2, 2 (Jordan) _Pleraque Gallia duas res industrissime persequitur, rem militare et argute loqui_. Cf. Diod. 5, 27 _sq._

[150] Lucius Caecilius, Livy, Ep. 12.

[151] For a more complete list of Gallic invasions in this period, see Mommsen, _H.R._ i. p. 344. The scantiness of continuous Roman history from B.C. 390, and its total loss from 293 to the first Punic war renders it difficult to determine exactly which of the many movements Polybius has selected.

[152] Ch. 13.

[153] This clause is bracketed by Hultsch, Mommsen, and Strachan-Davidson. See the essay of the last named in his Polybius, p. 22. Livy, Ep. 20, gives the number of Romans and Latins as 300,000.

[154] Others read Ananes and Marseilles [’Ανάνων ... Μασσαλίας]; but it seems impossible that the Roman march should have extended so far.

[155] That is, each city struck its own coin, but on a common standard of weight and value. See P. Gardner’s Introduction to Catalogue of Greek Coins (Peloponnesus) in the British Museum, p. xxiv.

[156] The Pythagorean clubs, beginning in combinations for the cultivation of mystic philosophy and ascetic life, had grown to be political,— a combination of the upper or cultivated classes to secure political power. Thus Archytas was for many years ruler in Tarentum (Strabo, 1, 3, 4). The earliest was at Croton, but they were also established in many cities of Magna Graecia. Sometime in the fourth century B.C. a general democratic rising took place against them, and their members were driven into exile. Strabo, 8, 7, 1; Justin, 20, 4; Iamblichus _vit. Pythag._, 240-262.

[157] The MS. vary between ὁμάριος and ὁμόριος. The latter form seems to mean “god of a common frontier.” But an inscription found at Orchomenus gives the form ἀμάριος, which has been connected with ἡμάρα “day.”

[158] There was still an under-strategus (ὑποστρατηγὸς), see 5, 94; 23, 16; 30, 11. But he was entirely subordinate, and did not even succeed to power on the death of a strategus during the year of office, as the vice-president in America does.

[159] Alexander II. of Epirus, son of Pyrrhus, whom he succeeded B.C. 272. The partition of Acarnania took place in B.C. 266.

[160] Near Bellina, a town on the north-west frontier of Laconia, which had long been a subject of dispute between Sparta and the Achaeans. Plutarch _Arat._ 4; Pausan. 8, 35, 4.

[161] Ptolemy Euergetes (B.C. 247-222).

[162] The treaty, besides securing the surrender of the Acrocorinthus, provided that no embassy should be sent to any other king without the consent of Antigonus, and that the Achaeans should supply food and pay for the Macedonian army of relief. Solemn sacrifices and games were also established in his honour, and kept up long after his death at Sicyon, see 28, 19; 30, 23. Plutarch, _Arat._ 45. The conduct of Aratus in thus bringing the Macedonians into the Peloponnese has been always attacked (see Plut. _Cleom._ 16). It is enough here to say that our judgment as to it must depend greatly on our view of the designs and character of Cleomenes.

[163] Phylarchus, said by some to be a native of Athens, by others of Naucratis, and by others again of Sicyon, wrote, among other things, a history in twenty-eight books from the expedition of Pyrrhus into the Peloponnese (B.C. 272) to the death of Cleomenes. He was a fervent admirer of Cleomenes, and therefore probably wrote in a partisan spirit; yet in the matter of the outrage upon Mantinea, Polybius himself is not free from the same charge. See Mueller’s _Histor. Graec._ fr. lxxvii.-lxxxi. Plutarch, though admitting Phylarchus’s tendency to exaggeration (_Arat._ 38), yet uses his authority both in his life of Aratus and of Cleomenes; and in the case of Aristomachus says that he was both racked and drowned (_Arat._ 44).

[164] ἡγεμόνα καὶ στρατηγὸν. It is not quite clear whether this is merely a description of the ordinary office of Strategus, or whether any special office is meant, such as that conferred on Antigonus. In 4, 11 ἡγεμόνες includes the Strategus and other officers. See Freeman, _Federal Government_, p. 299.

[165] Of Chaereas nothing seems known; a few fragments of an historian of his name are given in Müller, vol. iii. Of Sosilus, Diodorus (26, fr. 6) says that he was of Ilium and wrote a history of Hannibal in seven books. Nepos (Hann. 13) calls him a Lacedaemonian, and says that he lived in Hannibal’s camp and taught him Greek.

[166] _i.e._ in Latium.

[167] ἐπιλάβηται _injecerit manum_, the legal form of claiming a slave.

[168] 1, 83.

[169] Saguntum of course is south of the Iber, but the attack on it by Hannibal was a breach of the former of the two treaties. Livy (21, 2) seems to assert that it was specially exempted from attack in the treaty with Hasdrubal.

[170] From ch. 21.

[171] βασιλεύς. The two Suffetes represented the original Kings of Carthage (6, 51). The title apparently remained for sacrificial purposes, like the ἄρχων βασιλεύς, and the _rex sacrificulus_. Polybius, like other Greek writers, calls them βασιλεῖς. _Infra_, 42. Herod. 7, 165. Aristot. Pol. 2, 8.

[172] A promontory in Bruttium, _Capo del Colonne_.

[173] This division of the world into three parts was an advance upon the ancient geographers, who divided it into two, combining Egypt with Asia, and Africa with Europe. See Sall. _Jug._ 17; Lucan, _Phars._ 9, 411; Varro de L. L. 5, § 31. And note on 12, 25.

[174] The _arae Philaenorum_ were apparently set up as boundary stones to mark the territory of the Pentapolis or Cyrene from Egypt: and the place retained the name long after the disappearance of the altars (Strabo, 3, 5, 5-6).

[175] For Polybius’s calculation as to the length of the stade, see note on 34, 12.

[176] Livy, 21, 25, calls it _Tannetum_, and describes it only as _vicus Pado propinquus_. It was a few miles from Parma.

[177] _Pluribus enim divisus amnis in mare decurrit_ (Livy, 21, 26).

[178] See on ch. 33, note 2.

[179] This statement has done much to ruin Polybius’s credit as a geographer. It indicates indeed a strangely defective conception of distance; as his idea, of the Rhone flowing always west, does of the general lie of the country.

[180] I have no intention of rediscussing the famous question of the pass by which Hannibal crossed the Alps. The reader will find an admirably clear statement of the various views entertained, and the latest arguments advanced in favour of each, in the notes to Mr. W. T. Arnold’s edition of Dr. Arnold’s _History of the Second Punic War_, pp. 362-373.

[181] περί τι λευκόπετρον, which, however, perhaps only means “bare rock,” cf. 10, 30. But see Law’s _Alps of Hannibal_, vol. i. p. 201 _sq._

[182] His life according to one story, was saved by his son, the famous Scipio Africanus (10, 3); according to another, by a Ligurian slave (Livy, 21, 46).

[183] Livy says “to Mago,” Hannibal’s younger brother (21, 47). This Hasdrubal is called in ch. 93 “captain of pioneers.”

[184] That is, four legions and their regular contingent of socii. See 6, 19 _sqq._

[185] “He crossed the Apennines, not by the ordinary road to Lucca, descending the valley of the Macra, but, as it appears, by a straighter line down the valley of the Auser or Serchio.”—ARNOLD.

[186] The marshes between the Arno and the Apennines south of Florence.

[187] ἀπεκοιμῶντο Schw. translates simply _dormiebant_. But the compound means more than that; it conveys the idea of an interval of sleep snatched from other employments. See Herod. 8, 76; Aristoph. _Vesp._ 211.

[188] Livy, 22, 4-6. For a discussion of the modern views as to the scene of the battle, see W. T. Arnold’s edition of Dr. Arnold’s _History of the Second Punic War_, pp. 384-393. The radical difference between the account of Livy and that of Polybius seems to be that the former conceives the fighting to have been on the north shore of the lake between Tucro and Passignano; Polybius conceives the rear to have been caught in the defile of Passignano, the main fighting to have been more to the east, where the road turns up at right angles to the lake by La Torricella. Mr. Capes, however in his note on the passage of Livy, seems to think that both accounts agree in representing the fighting on the vanguard as being opposite Tucro.

[189] This treatment of non-combatants was contrary to the usages of civilised warfare even in those days, and seems to have been the true ground for the charge of _crudelitas_ always attributed to Hannibal by Roman writers, as opposed to the behaviour of such an enemy as Pyrrhus (Cic. _de Am._ 28). It may be compared to the order of the Convention to give no quarter to English soldiers, which the French officers nobly refused to execute.

[190] Polybius expresses the fact accurately, for, in the absence of a Consul to nominate a Dictator, Fabius was created by a plebiscitum; but the scruples of the lawyers were quieted by his having the title of _prodictator_ only (Livy, 22, 8).

[191] Ramsay (_Roman Antiquities_, p. 148) denies this exception, quoting Livy, 6, 16. But Polybius could hardly have been mistaken on such a point; and there are indications (Plutarch, _Anton._ 9) that the Tribunes did not occupy the same position as the other magistrates towards the Dictator.

[192] The _ager Praetutianus_ was the southern district of Picenum (Livy, 22, 9; 27, 43). The chief town was Interamna.

[193] On the Appian Way between Equus Tuticus and Herdonia, mod. _Troja_.

[194] Holsten for the Δαύνιοι of the old text; others suggest _Calatia_.

[195] Added by conjecture of Schw. One MS. has δευτέρα ἡ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἐριβανοῦ.

[196] Near Cales.

[197] Homer, _Odyss._ 10, 230.

[198] See i. 16.

[199] ἐξ ἀσπίδος ἐπιπαρενέβαλλον. The ordinary word for “forming line” or “taking dressing” is παρεμβάλλειν. In the other two passages where ἐπιπαρεμβάλλειν is used, ἐπί has a distinct (though different) force. I think here it must mean “against,” “so as to attack.” And this seems to be Casaubon’s interpretation.

[200] There is nothing here absolutely to contradict the picturesque story of the death of Paulus given by Livy (22, 49), but the words certainly suggest that Polybius had never heard it.

[201] A town on the lake of Trichonis, in Aetolia, but its exact situation is uncertain. Strabo (10, 2, 3) says that it was on a fertile plain, which answers best to a situation north of the lake.

[202] Cf. 9, 34. We know nothing of this incident.

[203] See 2, 53.

[204] The Achaean Strategus was elected in the middle of May, the Aetolian in the autumn. Aratus would be elected May 12, B.C. 220, and come into office some time before midsummer; Ariston’s Aetolian office would terminate in September B.C. 220. See v. 1.

[205] The capture of Sicyon and expulsion of the tyrant Nicocles was the earliest exploit of Aratus, B.C. 251. Plutarch, _Arat._ 4-9. The taking of the Acrocorinthus from the Macedonian garrison was in B.C. 243, _ib._ ch. 19-24. For the affair at Pellene see _ib._ 31. The capture of Mantinea was immediately after a defeat by Cleomenes. See Plutarch, _Cleom._ 5.

[206] The city of Pheia was on the isthmus connecting the promontory Ichthys (_Cape Katákolo_) with the mainland: opposite its harbour is a small island which Polybius here calls _Pheias_, _i.e._ the island belonging to Pheia.

[207] Caphyae was on a small plain, which was subject to inundations from the lake of Orchomenus; the ditches here mentioned appear to be those dug to drain this district. They were in the time of Pausanias superseded by a high dyke, from the inner side of which ran the River Tragus (_Tara_). Pausan. 8, 23, 2.

[208] The Olympiads being counted from the summer solstice, these events occurring before midsummer of B.C. 220 belong to the 139th Olympiad. The 140th begins with midsummer B.C. 220.

[209] But outside the natural borders of Arcadia. Mod. Kalávryta.

[210] By the diolcos which had been formed for the purpose. Strabo, 8, 2. Ships had been dragged across the Isthmus on various occasions from early times. See Thucyd. 3, 15.

[211] Reading, μόνου. See ch. 13.

[212] A mountain on the frontier, on the pass over which the roads to Tegea and Argos converge.

[213] A town of Phthiotis in Thessaly. See