1. Polybius

Lisa Hau

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1. Polybius

Lisa Hau
Lisa Hau

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This chapter is in the book Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus

1. PolybiusPolybius is our starting point because he is obviously, explicitly and una-shamedly a moral-didactic historian. He repeatedly stresses that the purpose of studying the past is to learn lessons that will be of use in the present. This is recognised by most Polybius scholars, but there is a widespread tendency to think of these lessons as purely practical rather than moral: Pédech, in his monumental La Méthode Historique de Polybe, devotes chapters to Polybius’ notions of psychology and his rhetorical method of comparison, but only touches on his moral didacticism in passing; Walbank says that Polybius saw history as ‘a way to attain practical ends by learning lessons’; Sacks in his monograph on Polybius’ views on historiography argues that his practical didacticism so far outweighs his moral didacticism that the latter ‘ought to be considered random digressions without historiographi-cal import’; and even two otherwise excellent – and very different – more recent monographs on Polybius, by McGing and Maier, largely ignore the moralising aspect.1 In this way the moralist Polybius has been played down in favour of the image of the practical, pragmatic and often rather cynical Polybius, who wrote a ‘handbook for statesmen’ with digressions on such amoral topics as fire-signalling and how to calculate the needed length of scaling ladders.This image, with which the present study wants to take serious issue, is often coupled with the equally dubious idea that Polybius wrote his work partly to justify his ‘collaboration’ with Rome and only used moral outrage to cloak his partisanship.2 There is no denying that Polybius shows political bias: he is obviously sympathetic to Achaea and scornful of the Aetolians, 1 Pédech (1964); Walbank passim,e.g. (1965, 1972: 58 and passim, 1977); Sacks (1980: 136); McGing (2010); Maier (2012). Also Petzold (1969), despite recognising the moral tenor of some of Polybius’ didactic digressions, focuses on the practical didacticism.2 E.g. Aymard (1940), Walbank (1965, 1974), Dubuisson (1990), Ferrary (1988: 265–348), Green (1990: 269–85).

24Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusand also often sides with Rome against its opponents. However, his bias is commonly exaggerated: Polybius is not simply a blind approver of every-thing Roman.3 Furthermore, as already argued in the Introduction, moral views and political views do not exist in separate spheres, but feed off each other. Polybius supported the Achaean League because he had been born into its leading circles, but also because he believed that the League’s laws were the most morally just of any political organisation he knew (2.38). When he wrote his work, he did not distinguish between his moral and political views, as surely most of us do not in our day-to-day lives.4 He aimed to instruct his readers in the right way to think and act in the world, and this included practical, political and moral instruction. The significant exception to the trend of disregarding Polybius’ moralising is Eckstein, who has devoted a lively and well-argued monograph to arguing against the view of Polybius as a hypocritical moralist.5 Eckstein demonstrates conclusively that Polybius was not a ‘Machiavellian’ historian who judged historical people only on the basis of their success or his own political bias, but the polemical focus of Eckstein’s book means that he does not provide a rounded picture of moral messages in the Histories. The present study aims to arrive at such a full picture, and then to compare this picture with the moral didacticism of other surviving texts of Greek historiography.This chapter will therefore examine Polybius’ moralising techniques and messages with one eye fixed on his text and the other on the texts of the historiographical tradition with which we shall be comparing his Histories. Polybius holds pride of place in this study because his moralising lessons and techniques cover almost the full range displayed across the genre. For this reason, his Histories works well both as an introduction to the subject and our approach and as a benchmark against which to compare his prede-cessors and successors in the genre. The chapter begins with an examination of Polybius’ prefaces and programmatic statements in order to determine the role that he ascribes to moral didacticism in his narratorial voice; then we shall turn to Polybius’ narrative and examine his moralising techniques, using and expanding the terminology established in the Introduction. This will be followed by an overview of Polybius’ moral lessons and some pre-liminary thoughts on the typicality and distinctiveness of these in compari-son with other Hellenistic and Classical historiographers.3 Eckstein (1995). Erskine (2000) and Champion (2004) have shown that Polybius to a certain extent regarded the Romans as barbarians.4 In a good, more recent paper on the rhetorical nature of the Histories Thornton (2013) consistently talks about Polybius wanting to teach ‘political’ lessons to his readers, in the process labelling ‘political’ several messages which I would call ‘moral’.5 Eckstein (1995).

1. PolybiusPolybius is our starting point because he is obviously, explicitly and una-shamedly a moral-didactic historian. He repeatedly stresses that the purpose of studying the past is to learn lessons that will be of use in the present. This is recognised by most Polybius scholars, but there is a widespread tendency to think of these lessons as purely practical rather than moral: Pédech, in his monumental La Méthode Historique de Polybe, devotes chapters to Polybius’ notions of psychology and his rhetorical method of comparison, but only touches on his moral didacticism in passing; Walbank says that Polybius saw history as ‘a way to attain practical ends by learning lessons’; Sacks in his monograph on Polybius’ views on historiography argues that his practical didacticism so far outweighs his moral didacticism that the latter ‘ought to be considered random digressions without historiographi-cal import’; and even two otherwise excellent – and very different – more recent monographs on Polybius, by McGing and Maier, largely ignore the moralising aspect.1 In this way the moralist Polybius has been played down in favour of the image of the practical, pragmatic and often rather cynical Polybius, who wrote a ‘handbook for statesmen’ with digressions on such amoral topics as fire-signalling and how to calculate the needed length of scaling ladders.This image, with which the present study wants to take serious issue, is often coupled with the equally dubious idea that Polybius wrote his work partly to justify his ‘collaboration’ with Rome and only used moral outrage to cloak his partisanship.2 There is no denying that Polybius shows political bias: he is obviously sympathetic to Achaea and scornful of the Aetolians, 1 Pédech (1964); Walbank passim,e.g. (1965, 1972: 58 and passim, 1977); Sacks (1980: 136); McGing (2010); Maier (2012). Also Petzold (1969), despite recognising the moral tenor of some of Polybius’ didactic digressions, focuses on the practical didacticism.2 E.g. Aymard (1940), Walbank (1965, 1974), Dubuisson (1990), Ferrary (1988: 265–348), Green (1990: 269–85).

24Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusand also often sides with Rome against its opponents. However, his bias is commonly exaggerated: Polybius is not simply a blind approver of every-thing Roman.3 Furthermore, as already argued in the Introduction, moral views and political views do not exist in separate spheres, but feed off each other. Polybius supported the Achaean League because he had been born into its leading circles, but also because he believed that the League’s laws were the most morally just of any political organisation he knew (2.38). When he wrote his work, he did not distinguish between his moral and political views, as surely most of us do not in our day-to-day lives.4 He aimed to instruct his readers in the right way to think and act in the world, and this included practical, political and moral instruction. The significant exception to the trend of disregarding Polybius’ moralising is Eckstein, who has devoted a lively and well-argued monograph to arguing against the view of Polybius as a hypocritical moralist.5 Eckstein demonstrates conclusively that Polybius was not a ‘Machiavellian’ historian who judged historical people only on the basis of their success or his own political bias, but the polemical focus of Eckstein’s book means that he does not provide a rounded picture of moral messages in the Histories. The present study aims to arrive at such a full picture, and then to compare this picture with the moral didacticism of other surviving texts of Greek historiography.This chapter will therefore examine Polybius’ moralising techniques and messages with one eye fixed on his text and the other on the texts of the historiographical tradition with which we shall be comparing his Histories. Polybius holds pride of place in this study because his moralising lessons and techniques cover almost the full range displayed across the genre. For this reason, his Histories works well both as an introduction to the subject and our approach and as a benchmark against which to compare his prede-cessors and successors in the genre. The chapter begins with an examination of Polybius’ prefaces and programmatic statements in order to determine the role that he ascribes to moral didacticism in his narratorial voice; then we shall turn to Polybius’ narrative and examine his moralising techniques, using and expanding the terminology established in the Introduction. This will be followed by an overview of Polybius’ moral lessons and some pre-liminary thoughts on the typicality and distinctiveness of these in compari-son with other Hellenistic and Classical historiographers.3 Eckstein (1995). Erskine (2000) and Champion (2004) have shown that Polybius to a certain extent regarded the Romans as barbarians.4 In a good, more recent paper on the rhetorical nature of the Histories Thornton (2013) consistently talks about Polybius wanting to teach ‘political’ lessons to his readers, in the process labelling ‘political’ several messages which I would call ‘moral’.5 Eckstein (1995).

Polybius25PREFACES AND PROGRAMMATIC STATEMENTSCharacteristically of Polybius’ elaborate and at times long-winded style, the work begins with a lengthy paraleipsis (i.e. a statement that one will not talk about something, which at the same time talks about it):Εἰ μὲν τοῖς πρὸ ἡμῶν ἀναγράφουσι τὰς πράξεις παραλελεῖφθαι συνέβαινε τὸν ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς τῆς ἱστορίας ἔπαινον, ἴσως ἀναγκαῖον ἦν τὸ προτρέπεσθαι πάντας πρὸς τὴν αἵρεσιν καὶ παραδοχὴν τῶν τοιούτων ὑπομνημάτων διὰ τὸ μηδεμίαν ἑτοιμοτέραν εἶναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις διόρθωσιν τῆς τῶν προγεγενημένων πράξεων ἐπιστήμης. ἐπεὶ δ ̓ οὐ τινὲς οὐδ ̓ ἐπὶ ποσόν, ἀλλὰ πάντες ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἀρχῇ καὶ τέλει κέχρηνται τούτῳ, φάσκοντες ἀληθινωτάτην μὲν εἶναι παιδείαν καὶ γυμνασίαν πρὸς τὰς πολιτικὰς πράξεις τὴν ἐκ τῆς ἱστορίας μάθησιν, ἐναργεστάτην δὲ καὶ μόνην διδάσκαλον τοῦ δύνασθαι τὰς τῆς τύχης μεταβολὰς γενναίως ὑποφέρειν τὴν τῶν ἀλλοτρίων περιπετειῶν ὑπόμνησιν, δῆλον ὡς οὐδενὶ μὲν ἂν δόξαι καθήκειν περὶ τῶν καλῶς καὶ πολλοῖς εἰρημένων ταυτολογεῖν, ἥκιστα δ ̓ ἡμῖν. αὐτὸ γὰρ τὸ παράδοξον τῶν πράξεων, ὑπὲρ ὧν προῃρήμεθα γράφειν, ἱκανόν ἐστι προκαλέσασθαι καὶ παρορμῆσαι πάντα καὶ νέον καὶ πρεσβύτερον πρὸς τὴν ἔντευξιν τῆς πραγματείας.If it was the case that praise of the practice of history had been passed over by those who before me have written about events, it would perhaps be nec-essary to urge everyone to study and approve of such records because there is no readier correction for human beings than knowledge of the actions of the past. But when not just some writers to a certain extent, but so to speak every single one of them,6 have made use of this argument, insisting that the truest education and training for civic engagement is learning derived from history, and that the most vivid and indeed only teacher of how to bear the vicissitudes of fortune with dignity is being reminded of the suddenly changed circumstances of others, then clearly no one, least of all I, would think it appropriate to repeat what has been said well and by many. The unexpected nature of the events which I have chosen to write about will be sufficient to encourage and exhort everyone, young and old alike, to engage with their study. (Polyb. 1.1.1–4)7This is a self-conscious narrator’s elaborate way of saying that he intends to follow in the footsteps of his generic predecessors: what is traditionally 6 I adopt Parmeggiani’s (2014) reading of πάντες ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἀρχῇ καὶ τέλει as a unit, meaning ‘all of them from beginning to end so to speak’, i.e. ‘so to speak every single one of them’. I do not, however, agree with his interpretation of what Polybius says about his predecessor’s practice of praising historiography as being critical or exasperated: note that Polybius says they have said it ‘well’ (καλῶς: 1.1.3), and that he says it would be necessary for him to say it if they had not already done so (1.1.1). The phrase is a rhetorical paraleipsis. Polybius is setting up his own project not in contrast with that of his predecessors, but in continuation of it: the ‘unexpected nature’ (τὸ παράδοξον: 1.1.3) of his topic will captivate his readers’ interest, thus making his moral lessons go down more easily.7 All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.

26Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusthe purpose of historiography is the purpose of his Histories too. That purpose is didacticism by exemplar, or paradeigmata, a word often used by Polybius, although not in this passage. Instead Polybius here calls the study of history the ‘education’ (παιδείαν) and ‘training’ (γυμνασίαν) for civic engagement (τὰς πολιτικὰς πράξεις) and then more specifically identifies the knowledge of the peripeteiai, or sudden reversals of fortunes, of histor-ical characters as the ‘teacher’ in the art of bearing such vicissitudes with dignity (γενναίως). The idea of history as teacher dominates the passage. The teaching seems to have two subjects: some unspecified content that will be useful for civic life, and the peripeteiai of historical characters, which has the moralistic purpose of teaching readers to act with dignity even when struck by such unforeseen reversals. It is worth emphasising that Polybius takes this (moral-)didactic purpose entirely for granted; for him, this is what historiography does. This is important, because it shows that moral didacticism was the norm of the genre in the second century bc. We shall return to this in later chapters.The preface is followed by two introductory books offering a relatively brief narrative of the First Punic War, intended as background knowledge (προκατασκεύη) for the more detailed treatment of the Second Punic War in books 3–15. At the end of the background narrative, Polybius offers a ‘second preface’. Here he sets out his purpose in continuing the work beyond his originally intended end-date of 167bc:Εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐξ αὐτωˆν τωˆν κατορθωμάτων ἢ καὶ τωˆν ἐλαττωμάτων ἱκανὴν ἐνεδέχετο ποιήσασθαι τὴν διάληψιν ὑπὲρ τωˆν ψεκτωˆν ἢ τοὐναντίον ἐπαινετωˆν ἀνδρωˆν καὶ πολιτευμάτων, ἐνθάδε που λήγειν ἂν ἡμα̂ς ἔδει καὶ καταστρέφειν ἅμα τὴν διήγησιν καὶ τὴν πραγματείαν ἐπὶ τὰς τελευταίας ῥηθείσας πράξεις κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχη̂ς πρόθεσιν. [. . .] ἐπεὶ δ’ οὐκ αὐτοτελει̂ς εἰσιν οὔτε περὶ τωˆν κρατησάντων <οὔτε περὶ τωˆν> ἐλαττωθέντων αἱ ψιλωˆς ἐξ αὐτωˆν τωˆν ἀγωνισμάτων διαλήψεις, διὰ τὸ πολλοιˆς μὲν τὰ μέγιστα δοκου̂ντ’ εἰ̂ναι τωˆν κατορθωμάτων, ὅταν μὴ δεόντως αὐτοι̂ς χρήσωνται, τὰς μεγίστας ἐπενηνοχέναι συμφοράς, οὐκ ὀλίγοις δὲ τὰς ἐκπληκτικωτάτας περιπετείας, ὅταν εὐγενωˆς αὐτὰς ἀναδέξωνται, πολλάκις εἰς τὴν του̂ συμφέροντος περιπεπτωκέναι μερίδα, προσθετέον ἂν εἴη ταῖς προειρεημέναις πράξεσι τήν τε τῶν κρατούντων αἵρεσιν, ποία τις ἦν μετὰ ταῦτα καὶ πῶς προεστάτει τῶν ὅλων, τάς τε τῶν ἄλλων ἀποδοχας καὶ διαλήψεις.If, therefore, it was possible to judge adequately from the very successes and failures of people and states whether they should be criticised or, on the contrary, praised, then I should stop and should end my narrative and my project here at the last-mentioned events as was my original intention . . . But as the judgements formed about both the victors and the defeated solely on the basis of their actions during the conflicts themselves are incomplete – because, for many people, what seems to be the greatest victories, when they

Polybius27are not handled properly, have turned into the greatest disasters, and, for a few, the most stunning catastrophes, when they are borne with dignity, have often turned into some kind of advantage – I must add to the aforemen-tioned events what was the attitude of the conquerors and how they ruled the world, as well as the reactions and attitudes of the rest. (Polyb. 3.4.1–6)Thus, the second preface, to an even greater degree than the first, is about not just didacticism, but moral didacticism. The purpose of historiography is to help the readers form an opinion of historical characters and to deal out ‘praise and blame’ to them – not just for the sake of the people praised or criticised – who are, indeed, most often long dead – but for the sake of the readers.8 In that way, the historiographer offers the historical charac-ters as moral examples, paradeigmata, which, with his help, his readers can use as guidance for how to behave in the world.9 It is characteristic of Polybius’ moral judgements that they have a practical dimension: judge-ments on victors and the defeated are incomplete because the way victory and defeat are handled can turn even the former into a disaster (συμφοράς) and the latter into an advantage (του̂ συμφέροντος). From this passage it is impossible to see whether the ‘disaster’ and ‘advantage’ are meant in literal, practical terms or in a figurative, moral sense, and we shall see below that the two most often go hand in hand in Polybius’ Histories. The intertwining of the moral and the practical becomes more pronounced in the rest of the second preface. Here the usefulness of the Histories (τὸ ὠφέλιμον:3.4.8) is said to consist in providing the information needed for contemporariy readers to decide whether Roman rule is to be shunned or accepted (φευκτὴν ἢ τοὐναντίον αἱρετὴν: 3.4.7), and for future readers in order to decide whether it is praiseworthy and worth emulating or blame-worthy (ἐπαινετὴν καὶ ζηλωτὴν ἢ ψεκτὴν: 3.4.7). The implication is that the Histories will allow both contemporary and future readers to pass moral judgement on Rome, but that contemporary readers might be able to trans-late that judgement into practical action.10 8 Many passages in Polybius assume that posthumous fame in the pages of history will be pleasing to the people who attain it although they are long dead: 2.7, 2.58–9, 3.22–32, 4.20–1, 7.13.2–14.6, 8.35–6, 10.2–5, 15.21. 9 It has been argued (Walbank 1972: 157–83) that the judgement on Rome’s use of power and the subjects’ response to it is just an excuse for Polybius to add material he had collected while watching historical events from the sidelines in Rome. I would argue that the fragmen-tary state of his last ten books makes it impossible for us to judge to what extent Polybius did or did not deliver on his promise of helping the reader to make this judgement, and I see no reason to doubt that the purpose he presents in his second preface is sincere. Even if it is not, it shows that such a purpose was a valid and probably not uncommon one for a work of history. 10 The narrative of Rome’s rise to power offered in the Histories suggests – as far as we can judge considering the depressingly fragmented state of the crucial last ten books – that Roman rule is in fact at the time of writing an irreversible fact, so that ‘shunning’ it can only

28Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusPolybius’ Histories has more pauses in the narrative of events than any other preserved Classical or Hellenistic work of history. In these narrative pauses, the narrator communicates directly with the narratee, providing a much fuller commentary on the events than is offered by any other his-toriographical narrator of the period. A relatively large number of these passages deal with the practice and purpose of writing history, and they provide us with a unique insight into the plan behind the work.11 What is strikingly obvious from these purpose passages is the repeated insistence on the usefulness of the Histories to its readers.12 It has been common for Polybian scholars to stress the practical nature of this usefulness,13 and it is true that some of the programmatic passages spring from didactic digressions with a practical bent.14 However, other passages focus on the intellectual benefit derived from studying history,15 and a significant pro-portion focus exclusively on the moral benefit of reading the Histories, such as 1.35, which extols the wisdom one can acquire from the vicarious experience of reading about the misfortunes of others. Significantly, most programmatic passages in Polybius give the impression that the practi-cal and the moral benefit are inseparable. An example is 1.65.6–9, where Polybius gives as his reasons for recounting the Mercenary War that (1) it is the perfect example of a ‘truceless war’ (intellectual benefit), (2) it shows the dangers of employing mercenaries and demonstrates what precautions lead to disaster while ‘accepting’ it can be fruitful if one strives to keep as much autonomy as possible. Eckstein (1995: 194–236) offers an excellent analysis of Polybius’ message about this balancing act for political leaders of Greek states. Ferrary (1988: 139–43) and Baronowski (2011: 159–62) take a less nuanced view of Polybius’ judgement on Roman rule (that it was overall benevolent and hence to be chosen/accepted) and hence of this passage. Ferrary has a good discussion of the moral implications of αἱρετὴν (1988: 341–2).11 E.g. 1.1, 1.2.8, 1.4.11 , 1.13.11–13, 1.14, 1.35, 1.57.3, 1.65.7–9, 2.14.1, 2.35, 2.38.1, 2.56–8, 2.61, 3.1.5, 3.4, 3.31, 3.32.6, 3.47–8, 3.57–9, 3.118.10–12, 4.40.1–2, 5.75.1–6, 6.2.5–6, 9.2.5, 10.21.8, 11.1a, all of book 12, 16.12, 16.20, 16.28. Polybius’ programmatic passages have been discussed by Sacks (1980) with a focus on historiographical theory and practical didacticism.12 Polyb. 1.2.8, 1.4.11, 1.13.6, 1.57.3, 1.65.7–9, 2.14.1, 2.35, 2.38.1, 2.56.11–12, 3.1.5, 3.31, 3.118.10–12, 6.2.8, 11.19a, 12.25b.2, 39.8.7. Polybius’ insistence on the usefulness of learning (see also 3.4.1–12 and 11.20.6) has been connected with Stoic influence, especially by von Scala (1890: 201–3), but the distinction between the pleasure and utility in literature goes back much further than Stoicism and is seen in, among others, Gorgias, Plato and Aristotle. See Walbank (1990) with references to previous scholarship.13 See note 1, this chapter.14 Such as 2.35, which justifies the detailed treatment of the history of the Celts by its usefulness for teaching readers not to fear barbarians too much, and 3.31, which justifies the lengthy discussion of the responsibility for the Second Punic War by its usefulness as material for political speeches in the reader’s present.15 Such as 1.4.11, which extols the unique ability of universal history to give readers a complete understanding of the world, and 2.14.1, which justifies an ethnographic digression with its necessity for understanding the march of Hannibal.

Polybius29should be taken (practical benefit), (3) it demonstrates the great difference in character between barbarians and civilised men (moral benefit), and (4) it provides the causal background to the Second Punic War (explan-atory reason). Similarly, when 10.21 discusses the importance of includ-ing biographical sketches in historiography because such characterisations encourage readers to emulate famous men, it is clear that the emulation is meant to encompass both practical actions and moral characteristics. Polybius did not draw a distinction between the different types of benefit he was offering, and he would most probably have been surprised and shocked to find that his modern readers have attempted to divorce his prac-tical lessons from any sense of morality.What is abundantly clear from the programmatic passages is the intended usefulness of the Histories, and not just or even primarily as a repository of facts and knowledge, but as a learning tool for the improvement (διόρθωσις: 1.1.1 and frequently) of human life. If we ignore this aspect of his work, we seriously misread it. It is equally clear that this improvement is supposed to be both practical and moral, with no real distinction between the two.A CHARACTERISATION OF POLYBIUS’ MORALISINGThis section examines and describes Polybius’ moral-didactic techniques for the purpose of comparison with those of other Hellenistic and Classical historiographers in later chapters. The description also aims to give a reader unfamiliar with Polybius or unused to looking at his work from this angle an impression of his moralising. For this reason passages are frequently quoted (and translated). We shall begin with a quick overview of the distribution of moralising in the Histories and then continue with an analysis of the moralising techniques using the terminology established in the Introduction.DistributionThe Histories was once a magnificent forty-volume work; it now survives only in a fragmentary state. Books 1–5 are completely extant, as is a good chunk of book 6 and substantial parts of 7–18. Then it becomes more patchy. There is less moralising in the first two books of the Histories than in the following complete and partially preserved ones. This is no doubt due to the summary nature of their narrative, which suits their function as background material for the main narrative. In the extremely fragmentary books 19–40 moralising is a dominant feature, to the extent that some stretches of fragments are purely moralising with very little narrative of events in between. This is due to the nature of two of the six

30Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusConstantinian epitomes in which the ‘fragments’ are preserved: one is about ‘virtues and vices’ (De Virtutibus et Vitiis) and the other contains ‘sayings’ (De Sententiis), which also often have a moral bearing.16 Although these moralising passages will have been less dominating in the original work, where they functioned merely as a running commentary on the narrative of events, the fact that they were there at all is revealing of Polybius’ method and intention. There is no reason to believe that his moralising practice in the now fragmentary books differed from his practice in the non-prefatory and more substantially preserved books 3–18.Moralising in Narrative PausesMuch of Polybius’ moralising is explicit and takes place in pauses in his narrative of events. As we saw in the Introduction, moralising in such pauses can be divided into moralising digressions, which use the narrative as a starting point for making more general moralising observations, and guiding moralising, which introduces, concludes or accompanies narrative episodes in order to tell the reader how to interpret them in moral terms. Polybius uses both frequently.Polybius’ moralising digressions can be long (e.g. 4.20–1, 3.22–32, all of book 6) or quite short (e.g. 4.81.12–14, 8.12.6–8). Their narrative func-tions fall into three categories: explanatory, offering extra information and discussion to explain the narrative, including introducing a character new to the story, explaining motives, and providing background stories for events; evaluative, that is, passing judgement, entirely or partly moral, either on a character or on actions or events; and philosophical, treating the story of events as a springboard for musing about bigger questions.17In all of these he often includes a polemical element and argues against his predecessors on points of detail or interpretation. Polybius does not use associative digressions, as far as can be seen from his extant text. Most often the digression’s connection with the surrounding narrative is clear at the beginning, then the middle part strays far away from the immediate story situation before returning to the situation at hand again at the end. A return to the narrative of events is often signalled by means of the par-ticle πλήν, or the combination πλὴν τότε. Some evaluative digressions are extended obituaries, that is, moral discussions of a historical individual’s 16 Equally, there is a preponderance of passages concerning embassies to the Senate and various Greek cities because a third epitome was a collection of passages on embassies. For the Constantinian excerpts see Moore (1965: 126–70) and Walbank (1979: 1–62).17 When the text is fragmented and the moralising digression survives in isolation, which is often the case in books 7ff., it is often not possible to determine its original connection with its context with certainty.

Polybius31character and/or actions, placed at the point of his death in the narrative (e.g. Philopoemen, 23.12; Hannibal, 23.13; and Scipio Africanus the Elder, 23.14). These tend to stay more tightly on topic than other moral-didactic digressions as they focus on their protagonist throughout and rarely spend time on extended comparisons or generalisations.18A typical example of a moralising digression in Polybius’ Histories is 1.81.5–11, provoked by the brutal way in which the mercenaries of the Mercenary War treated their captives:19διόπερ εἰς ταῦτα βλέπων οὐκ ἄν τις εἰπεῖν ὀκνήσειεν ὡς οὐ μόνον τὰ σώματα τῶν ἀνθρώπων καί τινα τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς γεννωμένων ἑλκῶν καὶ φυμάτων ἀποθηριοῦσθαι συμβαίνει καὶ τελέως ἀβοήθητα γίνεσθαι, πολὺ δὲ μάλιστα τὰς ψυχάς. ἐπί τε γὰρ τῶν ἑλκῶν, ἐὰν μὲν θεραπείαν τοῖς τοιούτοις προσάγῃ τις, ὑπ ̓ αὐτῆς ἐνίοτε ταύτης ἐρεθιζόμενα θᾶττον ποιεῖται τὴν νομήν· ἐὰν δὲ πάλιν ἀφῇ, κατὰ τὴν ἐξ αὑτῶν φύσιν φθείροντα τὸ συνεχὲς οὐκ ἴσχει παῦλαν, ἕως ἂν ἀφανίσῃ τὸ ὑποκείμενον· ταῖς τε ψυχαῖς παραπλησίως τοιαῦται πολλάκις ἐπιφύονται μελανίαι καὶ σηπεδόνες ὥστε μηδὲν ἀσεβέστερον ἀνθρώπου μηδ ̓ ὠμότερον ἀποτελεῖσθαι τῶν ζῴων. οἷς ἐὰν μὲν συγγνώμην τινὰ προσάγῃς καὶ φιλανθρωπίαν, ἐπιβουλὴν καὶ παραλογισμὸν ἡγούμενοι τὸ συμβαῖνον ἀπιστότεροι καὶ δυσμενέστεροι γίνονται πρὸς τοὺς φιλανθρωποῦντας· ἐὰν δ ̓ ἀντιτιμωρῇ, διαμιλλώμενοι τοῖς θυμοῖς οὐκ ἔστι τι τῶν ἀπειρημένων ἢ δεινῶν ὁποῖον οὐκ ἀναδέχονται, σὺν καλῷ τιθέμενοι τὴν τοιαύτην τόλμαν· τέλος δ ̓ ἀποθηριωθέντες ἐξέστησαν τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως. τῆς δὲ διαθέσεως ἀρχηγὸν μὲν καὶ μεγίστην μερίδα νομιστέον ἔθη μοχθηρὰ καὶ τροφὴν ἐκ παίδων κακήν, συνεργὰ δὲ καὶ πλείω, μέγιστα δὲ τῶν συνεργῶν τὰς ἀεὶ τῶν προεστώτων ὕβρεις καὶ πλεονεξίας. ἃ δὴ τότε συνέβαινε καὶ περὶ μὲν τὸ σύστημα τῶν μισθοφόρων, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον περὶ τοὺς ἡγεμόνας αὐτῶν ὑπάρχειν.Therefore, considering these events one would not hesitate to say that it is not only the bodies of human beings and some of the ulcers and tumours that have come about in them which can become aggravated and ultimately beyond healing, but also, and much more, their souls. For, in the case of ulcers, if one applies treatment to such diseases, they are sometimes irritated by this very thing and spread more quickly; but if, on the other hand, one leaves them alone, on the basis of their own nature they con-tinue their destruction unremittingly without cessation until they do away with their victim. Likewise in the case of men’s souls, such black spots and putrefactions grow on them that in the end no animal is more impious and more cruel than man. If one applies some forgiveness and kindness to such persons, they believe what has happened to be a plot and a deception and become more suspicious and hostile towards those who are exercising kind-ness; but if one retaliates, in their passionate rivalry there is no unspeakable atrocity they will not commit, considering such daring to be in the category of what is honourable. In the end, they turn into beasts and discard human nature. This condition must be believed to originate in most part from bad 18 Pomeroy (1989) offers a good analysis of Polybius’ ‘death notices’, short and long.19 Underlined phrases are discussed in the text following extracts.

32Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorushabits and bad upbringing from childhood, but there are many contributory causes, and the most important of them is the constant abusiveness and greed of their leaders. That was what happened at that time to the com-munity of mercenaries, and to an even larger degree to their commanders.(Polyb. 1.81.5–11)The function of this moralising digression is explanatory: it attempts to explain the inhuman behaviour of the rebellious mercenaries. Typically for Polybian moral-didactic digressions it is connected to its surrounding narrative by thin bridges at the beginning (εἰς ταῦτα βλέπων) and end(τότε), but in between it generalises about larger moral themes. In this case the moral content is psychological: Polybius is generalising about human nature and behaviour. In this particular passage it is interesting to note the extended medical comparison between tumours in the body and diseases of the mind or soul; such medical similes are one of Polybius’ favourite ways of explaining the human psyche.20 It is also worth noting the causal rela-tionship Polybius describes: the mercenaries have been made inhumanly brutal by three factors: bad habits (ἔθη μοχθηρά), bad education from childhood (τροφὴν ἐκ παίδων κακήν), and the abuse and unjust treatment they have suffered at the hands of their greedy Carthaginian superiors (τῶν προεστώτων ὕβρεις καὶ πλεονεξίας).While the two first causes are interest-ing in the light of modern psychological and pedagogical thinking, the third cause, and the one that Polybius identifies as the most important one of the three (μέγιστα δὲ τῶν συνεργῶν), foreshadows a moral theme with great political and military consequences that will be important throughout the Histories, namely the correlation between the way a leader – be he a ruler of a city or country or a military commander – treats his subjects/soldiers and the way they come to behave. This will be discussed further below. At no point is the digression prescriptively didactic, but it is not hard to make the jump: if brutal treatment renders soldiers brutal, anyone in command should strive to treat his men humanely. Moreover, this cause-and-effect link is likely also to be true in other relationships in life, which a reader might want to recall when thinking about how to treat his slaves or educate his children.Like this digression, most moral-didactic digressions in the Histories are descriptively didactic. However, in about a fourth of the digressions pre-scriptive advice is given to the reader, often at the end. Often, this advice is combined with a justification of why the narrator has taken the liberty to digress, or to digress at such length. The cases for inclusion are often practically didactic: 2.7 is included in order to teach people never to admit 20 See e.g. 13.2.2, where greed is compared to dropsy. Such medical comparisons are common in both Plato and the Stoics; see Walbank (1957: ad loc.).

Polybius33a garrison stronger than themselves into their city; 4.20–1 should teach the Arcadians not to ignore the civilising factor of music. Equally often, the digressions are intellectually didactic, most often in the sense that they aim to provide readers with a just view of a difficult issue: 4.20–1 also aims to give readers a true picture of Arcadia that does not blame the region for the crimes of one city; the famous digression on the Roman–Carthaginian trea-ties, 3.22–32, is allegedly there to make sure everyone knows the truth about the causes of the war in order to provide background knowledge for political actions in the present (3.31); and the digressions on the characters of the two Scipios (the Elder at 10.2–5 and the Younger at 31.25–30) are justified by the desire to make the reader credit these men with their own successes rather than ascribing those to fortune. However, coming at the end of complex moral discussions – or heated moral rants – these purpose statements often seem reductionist: 2.7 is surely there not only to teach a practical lesson about rejecting offers of barbarian garrisons, but also to teach the reader about the importance of taking moral responsibility for one’s actions and not blaming fortune for one’s own mistakes; and 3.22–3.32 does not just provide some idea of the characters of the Carthaginians and Romans that a reader can draw on for knowledge of how to deal with these two peoples in his own present, but offers a full and complex discussion of the legal and moral responsibility for the Second Punic War. Likewise, the digressions on the characters of the two Scipios are meant to have a practical and moral influence on the reader’s life as models for emulation.Common to all the moral-didactic digressions of Polybius, regardless of their topic, are colourful, emotional language, heated rhetorical ques-tions and expressions of aporia, expressions of wonder or exhortations to wonder, similes, generalisations, and analogies, often with medical condi-tions or animals.21 In other words, they are designed to persuade and use all the rhetorical tools available to a well-educated Hellenistic Greek.The shorter form of moralising in narrative pauses, guiding moralising, also occurs with great frequency in the Histories, in the form of intro-ductory, concluding and concomitant remarks steering a reader’s inter-pretation of specific episodes. Sometimes this guiding moralising contains proleptic remarks about how a character’s future fate is a consequence of his moral or immoral behaviour. The shortest version is a sentence or two;22 such brief conclusions often follow upon the death of a character 21 E.g. brutality compared with tumours at 1.81 quoted above, greed compared with dropsy at 13.2.2, Philip V and Antiochus III compared with predatory fish at 15.20.22 E.g. 1.84.10 (concomitant), 2.9.6, 3.19.9–11 (concluding/proleptic), 3.116.9, 4.34.2(concomitant), 4.67.2–4, 4.80.4, 4.81.5, 5.39.6, 5.56.13, 5.76.11 (all concluding), 6.58.1 (intro-ductory), 11.39.15–16 (concluding), 14.5.15 (concluding), 15.21.1 (introductory), 15.33.10(concomitant), 27.2.10 (concluding), 27.16.1 (introductory).

34Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusand function as miniature obituaries commenting on the deservedness of the death or on the qualities of the dead character.23 Some slightly longer passages of guiding moralising are simply more explanatory,24 but some use generalising remarks about human behaviour to make their points about specific instances of the historical narrative, such as this introduction to an episode of Aetolian political infighting:25μήποτε γὰρ οὐδὲν διαφέρει τὰ κατ’ ἰδίαν ἀδικήματα τῶν κοινῶν, ἀλλὰ πλήθει μόνον καὶ μεγέθει τῶν συμβαινόντων. καὶ γὰρ κατ’ ἰδίαν τὸ τῶν ῥᾳδιουργῶν καὶ κλεπτῶν φῦλον τούτῳ μάλιστα τῷ τρόπῳ σφάλλεται, τῷ μὴ ποιεῖν ἀλλήλοις τὰ δίκαια, καὶ συλλήβδην διὰ τὰς εἰς αὑτοὺς ἀθεσίας. ὃ καὶ τότε συνέβη γενέσθαι περὶ τοὺς Αἰτωλούς.For public crimes differ from private ones only in the extent and quantity of their results. For also in the private sphere the most common cause of the downfall of the whole tribe of criminals and thieves is the fact that they do not treat each other with justice, and, in short, their faithlessness towards each other. This was what happened also to the Aetolians at that point. (Polyb. 4.29.4)Most of these passages of guiding moralising are descriptive and do nothing more than tell the reader what to think about the events narrated. Some, however, become prescriptive and draw out an explicit moral lesson for the reader.26 A few briefly recap events narrated earlier and then introduce their continuation.27 Despite their differences, all of these passages are still essentially guides to the narrative, which ensure that the reader does not go astray in the understanding of the text, but comes away from his reading with the correct moral evaluation of every character and event and, conse-quently, with a strong sense of how to live his own life according to a moral compass. This forceful and frequent guidance is one of the main ways in which Polybius tries to fulfil his promise of writing a work useful for the moral improvement of his readers.23 Typical examples are 3.116.9, 5.39.6 and 5.56.13. For a good discussion see Pomeroy (1989).24 E.g. 1.64.5–6 (concluding), 2.57.8 (concluding), 3.105.8–10 (concomitant), 4.17.1–2(concomitant), 4.35.4 (concomitant), 8.12.6–8 (concluding), 15.25.1 (introductory?), 15.33.6(concomitant), 16.23.3–4 (concomitant), 16.30.2–3 (introductory), 18.53.1–4 (introduc-tory?), 18.54.8–12 (concluding), 20.11.9–10 (concluding/proleptic), 27.8.9–10 (concomitant), 28.14.1–2 (introductory), 29.22.2 (concomitant), 30.12 (introductory?).25 Other generalising examples are 1.17.11–12 (concomitant), 1.62.4–6 (introductory), 1.67.4–6 (concomitant), 4.87.3–4 (concomitant), 5.26.12–13 (concomitant), 13.5.4–6 (intro-ductory), 15.17.1–2 (introductory), 18.33.4–7 (introductory). 26 E.g. 1.35.1–3 (concluding), 2.4.3–5 (concluding, quoted on p. 51), 4.35.14–15 (prolep-tic), 8.21.10–11 (concluding).27 E.g. 16.13 picking up the narrative of Nabis, tyrant of Sparta.

Polybius35Moralising in the Narrative of EventsBeside the explicit moralising in digressions and guiding passages, Polybius employs a number of more subtle types of moralising integrated into his narrative of events.Evaluative phrasing is ubiquitous in the Histories, but is more pervasive in some passages than in others. A typical example is the narrative of the beginning of the revolt of Achaeus against Seleucus III:Σέλευκος γὰρ ὁ νέος ὡς θᾶττον παρέλαβε τὴν βασιλείαν, πυνθανόμενος Ἄτταλον πᾶσαν ἤδη τὴν ἐπὶ τάδε τοῦ Ταύρου δυναστείαν ὑφ ̓ αὑτὸν πεποιῆσθαι, παρωρμήθη βοηθεῖν τοῖς σφετέροις πράγμασιν. ὑπερβαλὼν δὲ μεγάλῃ δυνάμει τὸν Ταῦρον, καὶ δολοφονηθεὶς ὑπό τ ̓ Ἀπατουρίου τοῦ Γαλάτου καὶ Νικάνορος, μετήλλαξε τὸν βίον. Ἀχαιὸς δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀναγκαιότητα τὸν φόνον αὐτοῦ μετῆλθε παραχρῆμα, τοὺς περὶ τὸν Νικάνορα καὶ τὸν Ἀπατούριον ἀποκτείνας, τῶν τε δυνάμεων καὶ τῶν ὅλων πραγμάτων φρονίμως καὶ μεγαλοψύχως προέστη. τῶν γὰρ καιρῶν παρόντων αὐτῷ, καὶ τῆς τῶν ὄχλων ὁρμῆς συνεργούσης εἰς τὸ διάδημα περιθέσθαι, τοῦτο μὲν οὐ προείλετο ποιῆσαι, τηρῶν δὲ τὴν βασιλείαν Ἀντιόχῳ τῷ νεωτέρῳ τῶν υἱῶν, ἐνεργῶς ἐπιπορευόμενος ἀνεκτᾶτο τὴν ἐπὶ τάδε τοῦ Ταύρου πᾶσαν. τῶν δὲ πραγμάτων αὐτῷ παραδόξως εὐροούντων, ἐπεὶ τὸν μὲν Ἄτταλον εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ Πέργαμον συνέκλεισε, τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν πάντων ἦν ἐγκρατής, ἐπαρθεὶς τοῖς εὐτυχήμασι παρὰ πόδας ἐξώκειλε. καὶ διάδημα περιθέμενος καὶ βασιλέα προσαγορεύσας αὑτὸν βαρύτατος ἦν τότε καὶ φοβερώτατος τῶν ἐπὶ τάδε τοῦ Ταύρου βασιλέων καὶ δυναστῶν· ᾧ καὶ μάλιστα τότε Βυζάντιοι πιστεύσαντες ἀνεδέξαντο τὸν πρὸς τοὺς Ῥοδίους καὶ Προυσίαν πόλεμον.As soon as the young Seleucus had succeeded to the kingship, he learned that Attalus had already brought all the land on this side of the Taurus under his rule, and so he was eager to assert his own claim. He crossed the Taurus with a large army, but was treacherously murdered by Apaturius the Galatian and Nicanor. Achaeus immediately avenged his murder because of their kinship, and when he had killed Nicanor, Apaturius and their accom-plices, he commanded the army and ruled the country intelligently and high-mindedly. Indeed, when he had the chance and the impulse of the mob was making it easy for him to assume the diadem, he chose not to do this, but to guard the kingdom for Antiochus, the younger of the sons. With speed and efficiency he marched upon the land this side of Taurus and regained it. But when his campaign had been unexpectedly successful, as he had shut up Attalus in Pergamum itself and had become master of the rest of the country, he became elated by his good fortune and ran aground head over heels. Having assumed the diadem and proclaimed himself king, he was the most oppressive and terrifying of the kings and rulers this side of the Taurus. This was the man in whom the Byzantines especially trusted at that point when they undertook the war against the Rhodians and Prusias. (Polyb. 4.48.7–13)

36Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusThis is a straight narrative of events with no explicit moralising attached. Nevertheless, at the end of the passage, the reader knows very well that Achaeus is a good man corrupted by success, that his initial refusal of the royal title is the right way to behave, and that it was wrong of him to change his mind later. This impression is created by Polybius’ use of morally eval-uative phrasing. Firstly, the adverbs φρονίμως and μεγαλοψύχως tell the reader that Achaeus’ conduct before his great successes is admirable, both on intellectual (φρονίμως) and on moral (μεγαλοψύχως) grounds. Then, when his success is growing and his troops urge him to assume the diadem, the designation of those troops as τῶν ὄχλων ensures that the reader cannot sympathise with them.28 Moreover, the action of egging on Achaeus to rebel is ascribed not to the mob of soldiers, but to their emotional impulse, τῆς τῶν ὄχλων ὁρμῆς, placing their efforts in the category of the irrational and dangerous. There is thus no doubt that Achaeus’ refusal is the only right response. When he goes on to conduct the campaign ἐνεργῶς, the reader can only be impressed: ἐνεργῶς is not a moral word, but belongs to the category of words expressing military efficiency, something always admired by Polybius; and the fact that Achaeus pursues the war of his king ‘with speed and efficiency’ just after having refused the opportunity to replace this king marks him out as a stout and loyal soldier. Finally, when Achaeus changes his mind and adopts the royal title anyway, the decision is explained by his being ‘elated by his good fortune’ (ἐπαρθεὶς τοῖς εὐτυχήμασι), putting him in the same irrational and dangerous category as the soldier-mob, and with a striking ship-metaphor he is said to have run ‘aground head over heels’ (παρὰ πόδας ἐξώκειλε). The moralising is entirely implicit, but the reader is left in no doubt about how to evaluate the episode.Closely connected with evaluative phrasing and often employed in tandem with it is internal evaluation of the actions of a historical char-acter through the eyes of his contemporaries. This usually takes the form of a brief concluding statement, often in the shape of a participial phrase such as ‘being thought to have handled matters in a generous and kingly manner’ (δόξας μεγαλοψύχως καὶ βασιλικῶς τοῖς πράγμασις κεχρῆσθαι: 8.23.5) or ‘seeming to have given wise and timely advice’ (φανέντος δὲ φρονίμως αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῖς καιροῖς οἰκείως συμβουλεύειν: 15.19.8). We are not told to whom the protagonists of the two passages seemed kingly and wise respectively, but the evaluation is not contradicted, and so the reader is left to deduce that the thoughts of the unspecified contemporaries were, in fact, sound. In othercases the narrator is explicit about whose evalua-28 Walbank (1957: ad loc.) is surely right that the derogatory phrase here refers to Achaeus’ soldiers, not the common people.

Polybius37tion he is passing on, whether it is that of the ‘moderate men’ or ‘the many’ (33.18.10–11), and the intended reader, who belongs to the same social class as Polybius, is certainly not supposed to agree with ‘the many’. Often such internal evaluations particularly blur the moral and the practical as the approval of the internal audience in turn bolsters the position of the leader who behaved so well.A complex use of this technique can be seen at 36.9, where Polybius reports four different contemporary views about the justice or injustice of the Roman destruction of Carthage and leaves the reader free to think through the details of each view and then make up his own mind about which one to agree with. Such open-ended moral didacticism is unique in (the extant part of) the Histories, and it is most probably partly due to Polybius’ personal circumstances: Carthage had been destroyed by his friend and benefactor Scipio the Younger, and had he agreed with it, he would no doubt have said so and have turned the action into a moral paradeigma as he did with so many of Scipio’s other actions. As it stands, the lack of narratorial conclusion is most easily explained by Polybius disapproving of the destruction of the city, but being too loyal a friend to state that in so many words. At the same time, by giving the reader four different views, all based on sound arguments, Polybius is demonstrating how complicated it can be to evaluate morally the actions of historical and contemporary people: it all depends on what criteria you use and what you think is fair. By not taking sides, Polybius is both leaving it up to the reader to decide whom he agrees with, and inviting him to think about and evalu-ate his own criteria for moral evaluation.29 This passage gives a glimpse of the delicate tightrope Polybius must have walked as the friend and adviser of the increasingly powerful Scipio, but it also shows how important the moral-didactic dimension of the Histories was to him and how conscious he was of the different techniques available to fulfil it.An extended version of internal evaluation is speeches delivered by char-acters in the work. Polybius employs this type of moralising less than the Classical historiographers, as we shall see in Part II, but even for himspeeches are an important vehicle for demonstrating how moral principles can apply to specific situations. Speeches in the Histories are invariably political. They take place in Assemblies of Greek cities or city-leagues (such as the Achaean League), at peace conferences and before the Roman 29 The lack of narratorial conclusion has led to fierce scholarly debate over Polybius’ own standpoint. The debate is still live, as demonstrated by the fact that the two anonymous readers of this chapter for Edinburgh University Press both offered their own, mutually contradictory, interpretations of the passage. One of these interpretations is partly adopted here. See Hau (2006: 84–7) for a summary of the debate and a more detailed discussion of the passage.

38Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusSenate.30 Only four speeches in the extant text are given completely in direct discourse (5.104, 9.28–31, 9.32–9, 11.4–6); many more are offered in a combination of direct and indirect discourse.31 The task of figuring out whether or not to agree with a speech is rarely difficult in the Histories. Most often the speech or the speaker is endorsed by the narrator either before the speech begins (5.103.9, 30.31.2) or at its end (11.10.1); or we are told that the audience at the Assembly or Senate thought well of it or him, which should lead the reader to do so too (18.3.1, 21.31.6, 30.31.18). Some speakers are portrayed so positively throughout the Histories that explicit narratorial endorsement of their speech is unnecessary. For instance, when Philopoemen, who is praised in no fewer than four evaluative digressions,32speaks about the dishonour of offering and taking bribes at 20.12, the reader needs no narratorial steer in order to understand that his words are meant to carry moral authority.33 Furthermore, this and some other speeches echo moral attitudes explicitly expressed by the narrator else-where (on bribes see 4.35.14–15 and 18.35), which makes it natural to read them as reinforcing the moral didacticism, even when there is no explicit endorsement of the speech by narrator or listeners. This is the case, for example, of the speech by Scipio the Elder to Carthaginian ambassadors after the Battle of Zama where he explains that he will treat them mildly, not for their sake, but for the sake of his own and Rome’s honour (corre-sponding to guiding moralising at 27.8.9–10), and also of the fragment of a speech by Aemilius Paullus on the importance of staying humble even in great success at 29.20 (corresponding to guiding moralising at 8.21.10–11and 29.22.2, and a moralising digression at 29.21; the two latter passages were probably closely connected with the speech in the unfragmented orig-inal text).The most effective type of moralising integrated into the narrative of the Histories, however, is correlation between action and result. This type of moralising is displayed when the Achaean League is uniquely success-ful in uniting the Peloponnese because they act on the basis of ἰσηγορία, 30 The preponderance of ambassadors’ speeches is due to the fact that many of the frag-ments of the last books of the Histories have been handed down in an epitome on embassies; the amount of space they take up compared with the rest of Polybius’ narrative would look less disproportionate if we had more of those books.31 For discussions of Polybius’ speeches see Pédech (1964: 254–302), Wooten (1974), Champion (1997), Thornton (2013). Discussions tend to focus on the issue of sources and authenticity and usually take their point of departure from Polybius’ statement about the duty of the historiographer to report speeches truthfully (Polyb. 36.1.7).32 At 10.21–4, 11.10, 21.32c and 23.12.33 Likewise the speeches of Scipio the Elder and Aemilius Paullus, mentioned in this same paragraph, and the speech of Flamininus about the principle of treating the defeated enemy with mildness at 18.37. An interesting case is the speech of Polybius as a character in his own work at 28.7, which should presumably also be understood as authoritative.

Polybius39παρρησία, ἰσότης and φιλανθρωπία (2.38.6 and 9) rather than for their own gain (2.37.9), and when Philip V is the ‘darling of Greece’ (κοινός τις οἷον ἐρώμενος ἐγένετο τῶν Ἑλλήνων: 7.11.8) as long as he behaves with moderation and integrity, but as his behaviour changes for the worse, he loses the loyalty of the Greeks and is ultimately defeated by Rome (4.77, 7.11.10–12, 7.13). In other words, those who behave according to the moral code propounded by the narrator are successful whereas those who behave immorally come to grief. This type of moralising runs as a thread through the Histories. Thus, just as Scipio Africanus the Elder easily wins over the Spanish allies of the Carthaginians by treating them with respect (10.17–19, 10.35–6, 10.38), a host of kings and commanders treat various people well (their own troops/subjects or their defeated opponents) and are rewarded with honours and loyalty (e.g. Hiero, 1.8–9; Antigonus Gonatas, 2.70; Hannibal, 3.13.8). The principle is made clear in a couple of moralising digressions: 7.11 on how Philip’s fortunes changed when he changed his behaviour for the worse, and 10.36 on how the Carthaginians have alien-ated their Iberian allies by only treating them well until they had them under their control, and then changing their conduct.34The force of this moral didacticism comes especially from the fact that the principle underlies much of the narrative of the Histories even when it is not explicitly expressed, and it has much wider implications than a ruler or commander’s treatment of his inferiors. Sometimes it is easy for Polybius to show that those he considers the morally better people also come off better in the course of history: the moral Romans are victorious over the lawless Illyrians (2.2–12), the despicable courtier Apelles is finally foiled in his schemes and executed (4.76–5.28), Philip V is victorious as long as he follows a moral code (4.77, 4.82, 7.11), and Greece not only deserved to be conquered by Rome, but was actually saved by it from a morass of immorality (38.18). Likewise, on the macro-level, the main theme of the work is the causes of Rome’s rise to world domination, and Polybius shows that such power came to Rome primarily because it deserved it: Rome’s admirable constitution, the courage, self-discipline and high-mindedness of Rome’s leaders, and the simple fact that everyone else was much less morally deserving all make Rome’s achievement practically explicable as well as morally just. Sometimes, however, it is harder to demonstrate that the world works in such a satisfying fashion: in order to make his father, Lycortas, get his own back from the Achaean politicians who defeated him in politics and got his son deported, Polybius has to tell a story about how the statues of the hated politicians were put into storage and the statues of Lycortas carried out into the light by the people at the end of the Achaean 34 I have discussed this latter passage and the principle it embodies in detail in Hau (2006).

40Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusWar, long after the death of Lycortas himself (36.13). And, more pro-nounced, when the supremely moral Philopoemen is executed by poison in captivity, the narrator goes out of his way in his obituary to argue that his downfall was due not to any defect in virtue, but to unforeseeable fortune, tyche (23.12).In these situations this principle that ‘the good win and the bad lose’ is close to the surface of the Histories; at other times it disappears. There is no sense of a moral victor or the immoral defeated in the narratives of either the First or the Second Punic War,35and the narrative of the last ten books seems to show Rome increasing its strength by a string of political decisions which are collectively labelled immoral (31.10.7) and are some-times individually presented as such (30.18.7, 31.21.6–8).36 Nevertheless, the overall impression a reader gets of the world of the Histories is that, by and large, moral behaviour leads to political and military success. This moralising technique is, in contrast with the other techniques outlined above, based on the contents of the story rather than on the form of the dis-course. Thus it can be said to be both a moralising technique and a moral lesson, and for that reason we shall reserve more detailed discussion until the analysis of Polybius’ moral messages below.Moral-Didactic Techniques Working TogetherA typology of moral-didactic techniques is useful for investigating and explaining exactly how Polybius fulfils the moral-didactic purpose of his work. At the same time, however, it runs the risk of presenting moral didacticism in Polybius as piecemeal and fragmented. That would be far from the truth. In any section of the Histories the different techniques work together to create a coherent historical narrative with a strong moral bent and clear moral lessons. An example is the narrative of Philip V’s siege of Abydus (16.29–34).The episode begins with a non-moralising digression on the geographi-cal position of Abydus and Sestus (16.29). Then the beginning of the siege is narrated in one sentence (16.30.1) before the next sentence tells the reader 35 End of First Punic War: 1.62–4, where the Carthaginians are defeated in practice, but not in spirit (1.62.1) and their general is praised (1.62.4–6). End of Second Punic War: 15.16–19; Hannibal is praised at 15.16.5–6, and his defeat explained as due to ‘random chance’ (ταὐτόματον) which made him face an opponent ‘stronger’ (κρείττονος) than himself. 36 Polybius’ attitude to Roman foreign policy in the years 167–145bc, while he was on the one hand living in the city against his will (only really true until 149) and on the other became ever closer friends with Scipio the Younger and his friends and family, has been much discussed. The most important contributions are Walbank (1965, 1972: 157–83, 1974, 1977), Musti (1978), Ferrary (1988: 276–318), Eckstein (1995: 194–236), Champion (2004), McGing (2010: 129–68) and Baronowski (2011).

Polybius41what to look out for in the narrative to follow: not the siege engines or siege works, but the dignity (τὴν γενναιότητα) and remarkable courage (τὴν ὑπερβολὴν τῆς εὐψυχίας) of the besieged (16.30.2–4). This is introductory moralising. The next two chapters tell the story of the siege, marking the increasingly desperate resistance of the Abydenes with occasional evalu-ative terms in order to remind the reader where his sympathies are sup-posed to lie (‘stoutly’, ἐρρωμένως: 16.30.4;‘bravely’, εὐψύχως: 16.30.5). The Abydenian decision, when Philip refuses to come to terms, to entrust some of their elders with killing the women and children and burning the ships and valuables, while they themselves fight to the death, could easily have been presented as a monstrous resolution. Here, however, it is cast in a heroic light with the decision being made ‘unanimously’ (ὁμοθυμαδόν: 16.31.4) and sanctified with sacrifices (16.31.6–7). It is rounded off with a conclusion (16.31.8) that stresses the foresight and authority of the Abydene citizens,their willingness to fight to the death and the destruction wrought by the Macedonians, and the unjust violence of their attackers.37Then the action is paused for a moralising digression (16.32), which praises the courage of the Abydenes, compares it favourably with the desperate courage shown by other peoples in similar situations (16.32.1–4), and crit-icises fortune (τῇ τύχῃ) for letting those other peoples be victorious, but allowing not only the Abydenes to be defeated, but also their women and children to fall into the hands of Philip despite the men’s efforts to prevent this (16.32.5–6).38 After the digression the narrative is taken up again, now with more evaluative vocabulary as the Abydenes fight so desperately that Philip is forced to withdraw his troops at nightfall (16.33.1), but are then betrayed by two of the elders in charge of the women and children, who ‘sacrificed what was honourable and admirable about the citizens’ resolution for the sake of their own ambition’ (κατέβαλον τὸ σεμνὸν καὶ θαυμάσιον τῆς τῶν πολιτῶν προαιρέσεως διὰ τὰς ἰδίας ἐλπίδας:16.33.4) and handed over their charges to Philip. The focus then moves first to King Attalus of Pergamum and then to the Romans, who both send ambassa-dors to tell Philip to desist from the siege (16.34.1–7). After this interlude to show how Philip’s actions are condemned by the outside world – or at least by the part of the outside world which has been set up by Polybius 37 ‘Having ratified this [i.e. the decision to kill the women and children] they stopped counter-mining against the enemy and came to such a decision that whenever the cross-wall fell, they would fight till the end on its ruins against their attackers and die there’ (ταῦτα δ’ἐπικυρώσαντες τοῦ μὲν ἀντιμεταλλεύειν τοῖς πολεμίοις ἀπέστησαν, ἐπὶ δὲ τοιαύτην γνώμην κατέστησαν ὥστ’ ἐπειδὰν πέσῃ τὸ διατείχισμα, τότ’ ἐπὶ τοῦ πτώματος διαμάχεσθαι καὶ διαποθνήσκειν πρὸς τοὺς βιαζομένους: Polyb. 16.31.8).38 I have discussed Polybius’ view of tyche elsewhere (Hau 2011) and would here main-tain that the reader is not supposed to take the criticism literally, but simply to see the expres-sion as an outcry against the occasional injustice of historical events.

42Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusas moral authorities – the taking of the city is skipped over in a participial phrase (ὁ δὲ Φίλιππος κυριεύσας τῆς πόλεως). The narrative then focuses on the suicides taking place all over the fallen city, which move Philip to grant the citizens three days to end their own lives, and concludes with a passage that again stresses the courage and resolve of the Abydenes.39 In this way the different moralising techniques work together to highlight the courage and uprightness of the Abydenes (and, by contrast, the villainy of Philip) and turn it into an exemplum for the reader to admire and, if nec-essary, emulate.The moralising techniques are tools for Polybius to use in his moral- didactic mission. He uses them skilfully, sometimes individually, some-times in forceful combinations. There are very few pages of the Historiesthat do not contain some form of moralising. We might say that moral didacticism is the framework that gives shape to the historical narrative as well as the lens through which the events are presented.MORAL LESSONS OF POLYBIUSHaving analysed the means by which Polybius attempted to educate his readers morally, we now turn to the content of his moral lessons. For the sake of clarity we shall consider these under five headings: combining the morally right with the practically advantageous; the ability to handle the vicissitudes of fortune; the good commander; the good king; and the good man. Under the last three headings are discussed messages concerning the virtues and vices most associated with the three categories of historical characters. Such a division is to a certain extent artificial, as the lessons often overlap and reinforce each other in practice, and I shall attempt to make the main points of contact between them clear as the discussion progresses.Combining the Morally Right with the Practically AdvantageousA characteristic feature of much of Polybius’ moral didacticism is the way in which the morally right tends to go hand in hand with the practically advantageous. The use of the concepts of ‘the good’ (τὸ καλόν/τὸ δίκαιον) 39οἱ δ’ Ἀβυδηνοί, προδιειληφότες ὑπὲρ αὑτῶν κατὰ τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς στάσιν, καὶ νομίζοντες οἷον εἰ προδόται γίνεσθαι τῶν ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος ἠγωνισμένων καὶ τεθνεώτων, οὐδαμῶς ὑπέμενον τὸ ζῆν . . . οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ πάντες ὥρμων ἀμελλήτως κατὰ συγγενείας ἐπὶ τὸν θάνατον (‘The Abydenes, having decided beforehand for their own sake to carry out their original decree and believing themselves to be like traitors to those who had fought and died for their country, were in no way trying to remain alive . . . All the rest were hurrying to bring about their own deaths without delay, family by family’: 16.34.11–12).

Polybius43and ‘the advantageous’ (τὸ συμφέρον/τὸ ὠφέλιμον) in some passages of the Histories has been used to connect Polybius with Stoicism, but what is striking about the Histories is exactly that the two are so rarely con-trasted and are much more often seen to work together.40 This stress on the practical advantages of morally correct behaviour is part of what has earned him a reputation as a cynical pragmatist, but this view only sees half the picture. For Polybius, practical advantage should not be sought at the expense of morality, but naturally results frommoral behaviour, thus providing another reason for pursuing such behaviour. This does not make him a cynical pragmatist, but a material moralist.An extended example of a didactic paradeigma in the Histories which intertwines practical and moral arguments is 5.9–12, the passage where Polybius most extensively discusses the ‘laws of war’.41 The moralising is provoked by Philip V’s sacking of the Aetolian city of Thermus. Polybius first narrates the Macedonian troops’ severe ravaging of the surrounding countryside and looting of extremely wealthy city houses, culminating in their burning of all the valuables they cannot carry with them (5.8). This narrative is remarkable for its entirely neutral vocabulary and complete lack of narratorial criticism. But when Polybius then goes on to describe the looting of the temples and destruction of sacred objects, he introduces this narrative with the statement:Καὶ ἕως μὲν τούτου πάντα κατὰ τοὺς τοῦ πολέμου νόμους καλῶς καὶ δικαίως ἐπράττετο· τὰ δὲ μετὰ ταῦτα πῶς χρὴ λέγειν οὐκ οἶδα.And until now everything had been done justly and honourably according to the laws of war; but as for what happened afterwards, I do not know how to relate it. (Polyb. 5.9.1)There follows a narrative of the Macedonian destruction of temples and votive offerings, carried out because Philip and his associates were beside themselves with rage (παράστασις) over the Aetolian sacking of Dium and believed that they were only taking just revenge (ὡς δικαίως ταῦτα πράττοντας καὶ καθηκόντως: 5.9.6). This is rounded off with a moralising 40 Connection with Stoicism: Hirzel (1882), von Scala (1890: 201–3), Walbank (1957ad 3.4.10). As Walbank recognises, the contrast is much older than the Stoics; it is a topos in Thucydides’ speeches and extant Athenian oratory. In Polybius, τὸ καλόν and τὸ συμφέρον are contrasted in speeches at 8.11.7 and 24.12.2 and in the fragments 21.32c (which may well also be from a speech) and 15.24.6. Passages in Polybius where the good and the advanta-geous are parallel or said to work in unison: 3.4.10, 3.107.8, 7.3.4 (speech), 9.32.11 (speech), 31.30.1.41 For Polybius’ rules of war see also 23.15. Von Scala’s opinion (1890: 321–4) that Polybius was inspired by the Peripatetic Demetrius of Phalerum in these views may well be right.

44Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusconclusion which becomes at the same time the introduction to a lengthy evaluative digression:ἐμοὶ δὲ τἀναντία δοκεῖ τούτων. εἰ δ’ ὀρθὸς ὁ λόγος, σκοπεῖν ἐν μέσῳ πάρεστι, χρωμένους οὐχ ἑτέροις τισίν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἐξ αὐτῆς τῆς οἰκίας ταύτης παραδείγμασιν.I am of the opposite opinion from them. And it is possible to examine objec-tively whether my argument is right by using no other examples than those from this very house. (Polyb. 5.9.6–7)The message, although so far unexpressed, must be that it is acceptable to ravage the enemy’s land and cities, but unacceptable to destroy temples.A comparison with Antigonus Doson, Philip II and Alexander the Great follows (5.9.8–10.8). In a – moral – mental skip from impiety to brutality, Polybius first employs the two former individuals as examples of conquer-ors who treated the defeated with mildness and magnanimity (ἐπιεικείας καὶ φιλανθρωπίας: 5.10.1; τῇ δ’ εὐγνωμοσύνῃ καὶ μετριότητι: 5.10.2; τῆς αὑτοῦ πρᾳότητος καὶ καλοκαγαθίας:5.10.3; τῇ μεγαλοψυχίᾳ: 5.10.4). Antigonus is said to have been honoured for his restrained behaviour not just in Sparta, but throughout Greece even after his death (5.9.10) – not exactly a practicalresult perhaps, but a pleasing reward for moral behaviour, and one which often accrues to those Polybian victors who avoid abusing the defeated (more about this below). In the case of Philip II, his magnanimity after the Battle of Chaeronea is explicitly said to have led to a practical advantage: by this behaviour he won over the Athenians more effectively than he could have done by force and thus ‘by a small expense through his political shrewdness achieved his greatest success’ (μικρᾷ δαπάνῃ διὰ τὴν ἀγχίνοιαν τὴν μεγίστην πρᾶξιν κατειργάσατο: 5.10.4). The topic of destruction of sacred buildings is reintroduced by the mention of Alexander the Great, who is praised for leaving the temples of Thebes and Persia untouched and only destroying non-sacred buildings (5.10.6–8). We are not told what practical results he achieved by this; the example is left to reflect badly on Philip V on purely moral grounds.Polybius then makes the comparison explicit (5.10.9–11) and states that Philip V should have emulated his predecessors in their magnanimity. However,τοιγαροῦν τἀναντία τοῖς προειρημένοις ἀνδράσιν ἐπιτηδεύων τῆς ἐναντίας ἔτυχε παρὰ πᾶσι δόξης.Therefore, as he practised the opposite behaviour to the aforementioned kings, he met with the opposite reputation from everybody. (Polyb. 5.10.11)

Polybius45As with Antigonus Doson, the reputation is thought of as a natural result of a man’s actions, and it is considered sufficiently important to be mentioned as a desirable or non-desirable result depending on the type of reputation. This is true throughout the Histories,42 and Polybius always assumes that a reputation is an accurate reflection of a man’s actions and nature. Thus, here, he is clearly not suggesting that it would be acceptable to burn down temples as long as one could do it in secret; rather, in his world, being thought to be something or having a reputation for being something is the same as being it.43In 5.11.3, the discussion moves from the particular to the universal, and Polybius gives his ‘law of war’:τὸ μὲν γὰρ παραιρεῖσθαι τῶν πολεμίων καὶ καταφθείρειν φρούρια, λιμένας, πόλεις, ἄνδρας, ναῦς, καρπούς, τἄλλα τὰ τούτοις παραπλήσια, δι’ ὧν τοὺς μὲν ὑπεναντίους ἀσθενεστέρους ἄν τις ποιήσαι, τὰ δὲ σφέτερα πράγματα καὶ τὰς ἐπιβολὰς δυναμικωτέρας, ταῦτα μὲν ἀναγκάζουσιν οἱ τοῦ πολέμου νόμοι καὶ τὰ τούτου δίκαια δρᾶν· τὸ δὲ μήτε τοι̂ς ἰδίοις πράγμασιν ἐπικουρίαν μέλλοντα μηδ’ ἡντινοῦν παρασκευάζειν μήτε τοῖς ἐχθροῖς ἐλάττωσιν πρός γε τὸν ἐνεστῶτα πόλεμον ἐκ περιττοῦ καὶ ναούς, ἅμα δὲ τούτοις ἀνδριάντας καὶ πᾶσαν δὴ τὴν τοιαύτην κατασκευὴν λυμαίνεσθαι, πῶς οὐκ ἂν εἴποι τις εἶναι τρόπου καὶ θυμοῦ λυττῶντος ἔργον; οὐ γὰρ ἐπ’ ἀπωλείᾳ δεῖ καὶ ἀφανισμῷ τοῖς ἀγνοήσασι πολεμεῖν τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ διορθώσει καὶ μεταθέσει τῶν ἡμαρτημένων, οὐδὲ συναναιρεῖν τὰ μηδὲν ἀδικοῦντα τοῖς ἠδικηκόσιν, ἀλλὰ συσσῴζειν μᾶλλον καὶ συνεξαιρεῖσθαι τοῖς ἀναιτίοις τοὺς δοκοῦντας ἀδικεῖν. τυράννου μὲν γὰρ ἔργον ἐστὶ τὸ κακῶς ποιοῦντα τῷ φόβῳ δεσπόζειν ἀκουσίων, μισούμενον καὶ μισοῦντα τοὺς ὑποταττομένους· βασιλέως δὲ τὸ πάντας εὐ̂ ποιοῦντα, διὰ τὴν εὐεργεσίαν καὶ φιλανθρωπίαν ἀγαπώμενον, ἑκόντων ἡγεῖσθαι καὶ προστατεῖν.To take away from the enemy and to destroy his forts, harbours, cities, men, ships, crops, and all other similar things through the removal of which one might make the enemy weaker and strengthen one’s own situation and campaign plans, these actions are forced upon us by the laws and justice of war. But to vandalise uselessly temples as well as statues and all such items without thereby aiding one’s own affairs in the slightest and without weak-ening the enemy in the relevant war – how can one not say that this is the action of a raving mad character? Good men should wage war on the igno-rant not to destroy them utterly, but to change their behaviour and correct their errors, and they should not destroy the innocent along with the guilty, but rather save those who seem to have done wrong along with the inno-cent. For a tyrant does evil and rules his subjects through fear, hated by and 42 See e.g. 15.22.2–3, 22.14.1–4 and 31.23–30.43 See Eckstein (1995: 149–50). I frequently walk past a hairdresser’s window that proudly proclaims ‘A Reputation For Excellence Since 1956’. In the twenty-first century too, we are sometimes supposed to understand that a reputation for excellence is the same as true excellence.

46Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorushating his subjects, but a king does good to everyone, is loved because of his benefactions and kindness, and rules as a leader over the willing. (Polyb. 5.11.3–6)We are now explicitly told that destroying the land and practically useful buildings of the enemy is not only allowed but, in fact, necessary accord-ing to the ‘laws of war’ and also quite acceptable (ἀναγκάζουσιν οἱ του̂ πολέμου νόμοι καὶ τὰ τούτου δίκαια). If the victor destroys sacred buildings and objects, however, this is the sign of a sick mind. This neatly illustrates the close connection between the practically advantageous and the morally right in the Histories:it is fine to push one’s own advantage by destroying the land, buldings and men of the enemy, but one should not destroy any-thing just for the sake of destroying it. Presumably there is also a religious reason for avoiding the destruction of sacred property, but that is not spelled out (and we shall return to Polybius’ lessons on piety below). It is worth noting that Polybius’ ‘rules of war’ pose a very different distinction from the rules of the Geneva Convention, which stresses the difference between military personnel and equipment, which are legitimate targets, and the civilian population and their homes, which are not. Polybius, living in an age where many soldiers were still citizen soldiers and an army had to live off the land, considers civilian homes and fields acceptable targets, and only religous buildings out of bounds.Even more interesting, however, is the way in which Polybius slides from talking in concrete terms about allowed and off-limit targets to (in 5.11.5–6) expressing much more general sentiments, which seem only tangentially related to his first point. The prescriptively moralising statement that good men should wage war not to destroy their enemies, but to ‘correct their errors’ seems slightly out of kilter with the apparently religously moti-vated rules of war just laid out. How much less is an enemy destroyed if one razes every building to the ground except his temples? Even more confusingly, the second part of the prescription, that rather than destroy-ing the innocent along with the guilty, the guilty should be spared so as not to harm the innocent, seems much closer to the Geneva Convention than to the Hellenistic laws of war Polybius has just propounded. It seems that, as in the paradeigmatic section about Antigonus Doson, Philip II and Alexander the Great, Polybius slides easily and unconsciously between a discussion of the destruction of buildings and crops to a discussion of general brutality on the part of the victor.The slippage becomes obvious in the final sentence of the quoted passage, which states the time-honoured maxim that a tyrant rules through wicked deeds and fear and is hated whereas a king rules through benefactions and kindness and is loved. We have now evidently moved from the immediate

Polybius47actions of a victor when overrunning a country to the long-term behaviour of a conqueror who intends to keep and rule his conquest. Considering the age of Roman conquest in which Polybius wrote, it is not surprising that the two situations were closely connected in his mind, but it reveals the close connection between the practical and the moral good in the Histories: although the initial, concrete lecturing on the laws of war, which was directly provoked by an incident in the narrative, condemns the destruction of religious buildings on the basis that this does not bring any concrete advantage, and thus seems to prioritise practical benefit over morality in a hierarchy of virtues, this hierarchy changes as the digression moves further and further away from the narrative of the incident that sparked it. No practical advantage is mentioned as attaching to the maxim that one should not aim to destroy one’s enemies, and the practical advantage of the good king (being loved by his subjects, who will then not revolt) is just a pleasant by-product of his morally good behaviour, which is an end in itself.In the last paragraph of the digression (5.11.7–12.4), Polybius returns to Philip V and imagines counterfactually what would have been the reaction of the Aetolians if Philip had refrained from destroying their temples:44they would have condemned themselves, but admired Philip (αὑτω̂ ν μὲν καταγινώσκειν, τὸν δὲ Φίλιππον ἀποδέχεσθαι καὶ θαυμάζειν) for his kingli-ness and nobility (βασιλικω̂ ς καὶ μεγαλοψύχως: 5.12.1) and have yielded to him. This may seem a slightly naive assumption to a cynical reader, but it shows how ingrained the idea that morally good conduct leads to practi-cally good results is in the moral framework of the Histories.Polybius concludes, in a rhetorically balanced passage that beautifully combines the practical with the moral:καὶ μὴν τό γε νικῆσαι τοὺς πολεμίους καλοκαγαθίᾳ καὶ τοῖς δικαίοις οὐκ ἐλάττω, μείζω δὲ παρέχεται χρείαν τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις κατορθωμάτων. οἷς μὲν γὰρ δι’ ἀνάγκην, οἷς δὲ κατὰ προαίρεσιν εἰκουσιν οἱ λειφθέντες· καὶ τὰ μὲν μετὰ μεγάλων ἐλαττωμάτων ποεῖται τὴν διόρθωσιν, τὰ δὲ χωρὶς βλάβης πρὸς το βέλτιον μετατίθησι τοὺς ἁμαρτάνοντας.Surely, to conquer one’s enemies by honourable and lawful behaviour is more, not less, useful than victories won by use of arms. For in the one case, the survivors yield from necessity, in the other from choice; and in the one case the correction of behaviour is achieved alongside great disadvan-tages, in the other the behaviour of the wrongdoers is changed to the better without harm. (Polyb. 5.12.2–3)Conquering without the use of arms is easier and cheaper, but also more honourable. The practical and the moral purpose are so closely 44 On the role of such counterfactuals in Polybius see Maier (2013).

48Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorusintertwined that it is impossible to see where one ends and the other begins. Such combining of the moral and the practical is a distinctive feature of Polybius’ writing. Many of the characters who earn the highest praise in the Histories are men who, in the eyes of Polybius, acted morally and thereby won advantages for themselves (e.g. Scipio the Elder acting as the moderate victor at New Carthage at 10.17–19, and Scipio the Younger training for political life at 31.25–30), and some of the most famous pas-sages of the work are lengthy didactic digressions which combine the two aspects: 3.22–32 on the legal and moral responsibility for the Second Punic War, and all of book 6 on the moral and practical excellence of the Roman constitution.In moral-didactic terms, that means that the reader of the Histories is taught that it usually pays to be good. It also means that moral advice and practical advice are often intermingled in prescriptive passages, par-ticularly those that deal with how to be a good military commander (see below).The Ability to Handle the Vicissitudes of FortuneIn the preface to the Histories, quoted above, Polybius states that the study of history is both ‘the truest education and training for civic engagement’ and ‘the most vivid and indeed only teacher of how to bear the vicissitudes of fortune with dignity’. This is an announcement of a twofold didac-tic purpose: partly to offer practical and moral advice specifically for the politician, partly to provide moral examples to follow and avoid for the private person who finds himself a victim of shifting fortunes. In schol-arship on Polybius it is the first purpose that has received by far the most attention. However, it is surely of no little interest that the – at first glance rather more limited and entirely moral – lesson of how to bear the ups and downs of life with dignity occupies as important a place in Polybius’ purpose statement as the broader lesson, both practical and moral, of how to engage in political life.The theme is also prominent in the second preface, where the narra-tor, as we have seen above (p. 26), explains that he cannot end his work in 167bc as originally envisioned because the reader would be unable to ‘form a considered opinion’ (ποιήσασθαι τὴν διάληψιν) about people and states on the basis of their successes (τωˆν κατορθωμάτων) and fail-ures (τωˆν ἐλαττωμάτων) alone. Such an opinion can only be formed on the basis of the manner in which the two parties handled their respective success and misfortune. It is clear from the use of the nouns κατόρθωμαand ἐλάττωμα that Polybius here thinks of success and failure primarily in military terms, as victory and defeat. More specifically, the last ten books

Polybius49of the Histories are supposed to offer the reader a sound basis for ‘forming a considered opinion’ about how Rome handled the good fortune that was world dominance, and how the conquered states handled their correspond-ing misfortune.The fact that the theme of human ability to cope with good and bad fortune is central to both of Polybius’ prefaces shows that it was at the heart of what he wanted to do with his Histories. No other ancient histori-ographer puts this theme front and centre to the same degree. Throughout the Histories the theme permeates the work at every level. It also figures in programmatic statements outside of the prefaces (1.35), and it lies at the heart of Polybius’ fascination with the Roman constitution, which shows its worth in that it prevents the state from growing overconfident in good fortune (Polyb. 6.18.5–6). It is a frequent topic in speeches delivered by characters (e.g. the speeches of Scipio and Hannibal to each other after the Battle of Zama, 15.6.4–8.14), and it is the most common topic for explicit moralising in the work as a whole.45 Perhaps surprisingly when seen from the point of view of modern readers, the focus is more often on the ability to bear success than to bear misfortune. In the world of the Histories the temptation to overstep the boundaries when successful is quite simply the one thing that most often leads human beings astray from the path of morality.46 The mistake is so common that success, especially political or military success, becomes a sort of test, which most men fail by becoming arrogant and abusive, and only a few pass by staying humble and humane.The first explicit moralising on a character’s handling of changeable for-tunes is 1.35. This is the conclusion to the story of how the Roman consul M. Atilius Regulus first defeats the Carthaginians in battle and arrogantly offers them such harsh conditions that they decide to fight on, whereupon he himself is defeated in battle and taken captive by the Carthaginians: ̓Εν ᾧ καιρῷ πολλά τις ἂν ὀρθῶς ἐπισημαινόμενος εὕροι πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίου συντελεσθέντα. καὶ γὰρ τὸ διαπιστεῖν τῇ τύχῃ, καὶ μάλιστα κατὰ τὰς εὐπραγίας, ἐναργέστατον ἐφάνη πᾶσιν τότε διὰ τῶν Μάρκου συμπτωμάτων· ὁ γὰρ μικρῷ πρότερον οὐ διδοὺς ἔλεον οὐδὲ συγγνώμην τοῖς πταίουσιν παρὰ πόδας αὐτὸς ἤγετο δεησόμενος τούτων περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ σωτηρίας.45 Passages moralising explicitly on how to handle good and bad fortune: 1.35.1–3, 2.2–4, 3.31.2–4, 4.48.5–13, 5.46.6–7, 6.2.5–6, 6.10, 6.18.5–6. 6.44, 8.20.8–12, 8.21.10–11, 9.42.5–8, 10.17.6–19, 10.40, 11.2, 15.6.3–8.14, 15.17.4, 18.33.4–7, 18.37, 25.3.9–10, 27.8.8–9, 29.20, 30.6–9, 36.4.9–5.5. 46 The importance of bearing good fortune with moderation is propounded so often in the Histories that Walbank (1957: 19) terms it ‘the same trite homily’ repeated with ‘monot-onous regularity’.

50Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusIf one distinguishes correctly, it is possible to find in this situation much to contribute to the correction of human life. Because of what happened to Marcus, everyone at the time saw clearly that fortune should be distrusted, especially in times of success. For he who only a little before had not offered pity or mercy to the defeated was almost immediately himself led away to beg for his own life from these same people.(Polyb. 1.35.1–3)This prescriptively moralising conclusion makes the narrative of Regulus a didactic paradeigma and an interpretative template for the many similar stories that follow.47 The passage links back to the implicitly moralis-ing narrative of Regulus’ earlier treatment of the ambassadors from the defeated Carthaginians (1.31). Here, Regulus was said to make ‘harsh demands’ (τὸ βάρος τῶν ἐπιταγμάτων: 1.31.6; τῇ βαρύτητι τοῦ Μάρκου: 1.31.7) because he believed that he had already won the final victory (ὡς ἤδη κεκρατηκὼς τῶν ὅλων: 1.31.6). In this he was clearly mistaken, and his mistake leads to his own undoing, demonstrating that, in typical Polybian fashion, it would have been more advantageous to have behaved with mod-eration and humility. Despite the fact that Regulus’ situation was quite different from that of the men he had previously humiliated – they were ambassadors negotiating on behalf of their threatened city; Regulus is a captive, but his city is not under direct threat – the narrator makes it sound as if he has swapped places with the men he previously humiliated: ‘he who only a little before . . . was almost immediately himself led away to beg for his own life from these same people’. The result is an emphasis on the strik-ing, paradoxical or ironic in the change in Regulus’ circumstances, which gives it an air of a dramatic peripeteia.Regulus thus fails the test of good fortune. So does the rebel Achaeus, whose adoption of the royal title was used as an example of moralising by means of evaluative vocabulary above (pp. 35–6). His capture and exe-cution by Antiochus III later earn a moralising conclusion admonishing the reader to trust no one easily (μηδενὶ πιστεύειν ῥᾳδίως) and not to be boastful in success (μὴ μεγαλαυχεῖν ἐν ταῖς εὐπραγίαις) because, ‘being human’, we need always to be prepared for everything (πᾶν δὲ προσδοκᾶν ἀνθρώπους ὄντας: 8.21.11). Similarly, the Aetolians are turned into a neg-ative paradeigma in 2.2–4. Here they lay siege to the city of Medium, and when the city is on the verge of giving in just before the annual election of the Aetolian strategos, the retiring strategos claims his right before the Aetolian Assembly to a part of the spoils when the city falls. The Assembly decides that both the retiring and the new strategos will have their part, 47 It seems that the laudatory Regulus legend of the Roman tradition, seen most famously in Hor. Carm.3.5 and Cic. Off. 3.99, had not yet taken root at the time of Polybius; see Leach (2014).

Polybius51and that both names will be inscribed on the victory dedication. Shortly afterwards the Medionians receive help from the Illyrians, who overwhelm the Aetolian lines and liberate the city. The Medionians celebrate and ded-icate the captured arms to the gods with a mocking inscription mentioning both the retired and the new Aetolian strategos. The narrator concludes:τῆς τύχης ὥσπερ ἐπίτηδες καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀνθρώποις ἐπὶ τῶν ἐκείνοις συμβαινόντων ἐνδεικνυμένης τὴν αὑτῆς δύναμιν. ἃ γὰρ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν αὐτοὶ προσεδόκων ὅσον ἤδη πείσεσθαι, ταῦτα πράττειν αὐτοῖς ἐκείνοις παρέδωκεν ἐν πάνυ βραχεῖ χρόνῳ κατὰ τῶν πολεμίων. Αἰτωλοὶ δὲ τῇ παραδόξῳ χρησάμενοι συμφορᾷ πάντας ἐδίδαξαν μηδέποτε βουλεύεσθαι περὶ τοῦ μέλλοντος ὡς ἤδη γεγονότος, μηδὲ προκατελπίζειν βεβαιουμένους ὑπὲρ ὧν ἀκμὴν ἐνδεχόμενόν ἐστιν ἄλλως γενέσθαι, νέμειν δὲ μερίδα τῷ παραδόξῳ πανταχῇ μὲν ἀνθρώπους ὄντας, μάλιστα δ ̓ ἐν τοῖς πολεμικοῖς.Fortune, as if on purpose, demonstrating its power to other human beings by what had happened to these men. For the things which they themselves had been expecting imminently to suffer at the hands of their enemies she granted them to do themselves to those enemies a very short time later. And the Aetolians, in suffering this unexpected disaster, taught everyone never to deliberate about the future as if it has already happened and never to expect firmly things which may yet possibly turn out otherwise, but to allot a portion to the unexpected in all matters since we are human, and especially in war.(Polyb. 2.4.3–5)Again we see the sudden change in circumstances attributed to fortune (tyche), and again we have a reminder that we are only human and thus cannot know the future. As in the Regulus passage, there is also a deliber-ate mirroring of previous success with present misfortune (the inscription on the shields mocking the decree of the Aetolians), and it is hinted that an abusive or overconfident victor is brought low exactly because of his abusiveness or overconfidence. These features are all typical of Polybius’ moralising on the topic of the changeability of fortune and human ability to cope with it. It is important to point out, however, that Polybius – in contrast with Diodorus, as we shall see in the next chapter – never explic-itly says that such actions or attitudes are punished by tyche or the divine; the closest he gets is saying that it ‘looked as if’ tyche had punished the overconfident (2.4.3, 1.86.7, 20.7.2).48 Nonetheless it is a fact, and a very didactic one, that characters in the Histories who do not know how to handle good fortune with moderation usually come to sticky ends.49While most characters in the Histories fall into the trap of becoming overconfident in good fortune, there are a heroic few who avoid the pitfall. 48Contra Roveri (1982: 322), who uses 2.4.3–5 as an example of tyche acting as punisher. For a discussion of the concept of tyche in Polybius see Hau (2011).49 See e.g. 1.35.1–3, 2.2–4, 4.48.5–13 with 8.20, 5.46.6–7 with 5.48, 25.3.9–10.

52Moral History from Herodotus to DiodorusThe first conspicuous example (in the extant text) is Scipio Africanus the Elder. After his victories over the Carthaginians in Iberia the former allies of the Carthaginians come over to his side in droves, and they address him as ‘king’. Scipio is here in a situation similar to that of Achaeus, but he handles the situation rather better, and tells the Iberians that ‘he wanted to be called kingly by everyone and to truly live up to that, but that he did not want to be king or to be called king by anyone’.50 The narrator then launches into an evaluative digression in praise of this action, stating that it proves Scipio’s ‘greatness of soul’ (μεγαλοψυχία) that he did not accept what tyche offered him (10.40.6). It is even more impressive, the narrator says, that Scipio rejected the temptation later in life when he was the con-queror of the entire world and was hailed as king everywhere, and this truly shows to what degree ‘Scipio surpassed other men in greatness of soul’.51The two other characters who conspicuously avoid the trap are Aemilius Paullus and his adopted son, grandson of Scipio the Elder, Scipio Africanus the Younger. Both of these express the Polybian message in a speech deliv-ered to fellow-Romans using a defeated enemy as an example of the change-ability of fortune: Scipio the Younger points to the surrendered Carthaginian statesman Hasdrubal and declares that this demonstrates the power of tycheand teaches that human beings should not become overconfident (μηδέποτε λέγειν μηδὲ πράττειν μηδὲν ὑπερήφανον ἄνθρωπον ὄντα: 38.20); Aemilius Paullus expresses the doctrine in more detail when presenting the captured Perseus to the Senate (in an example of a speech that gains its didactic authority from corresponding to narratorial moralising elsewhere in the work, 29.20). Both of these examples spring from the type of situation that most often sparks Polybian moralising on the right way to handle good fortune, namely scenes of the victorious general. In these situations the ques-tion of how to behave in great success becomes a question of how to treat the defeated and/or captives, and the challenge – which most victors fail – is to show mildness and magnanimity because of a realisation that we are all human beings and subjects of unstable fortune.52 A corollary of such an awareness of one’s humanity, with its limited control and its solidarity with other human beings, is that the victor treats the defeated mildly, not because they deserve it, but because this is the way to preserve his own honour and enhance his own glory (see especially 15.17.4). This then becomes a way of breaking the circle of revenge dictated by traditional Greek morality.5350βούλεσθαι καὶ λέγεσθαι παρὰ πᾶσι καὶ ταῖς ἀληθείαις ὑπάρχειν, βασιλεύς γε μὴν οὔτ ̓ εἶναι θέλειν οὔτε λέγεσθαι παρ ̓ οὐδενί:10.40.5.51τοσοῦτον ὑπερέθετο μεγαλοψυχίᾳ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους:10.40.9.52 Examples are: 9.42–5–8, 10.17–19, 15.4.6–12, 15.17.4, 22.16.53 Such ‘victor-after-the-victory scenes’ have been discussed in detail as a type-scene in Greek historiography more generally in Hau (2008).