The Hellenistic World and Rome
by turns cruel and benevolent; Cleomenes, king of Sparta in the third cen-
tury (–..), exhibited similar contradictions; the Athenian people
behaved differently under the leadership of Aristides and Pericles than they
did under Cleon and Chares; so also did the Spartans, under kings Cleom-
brotus and Agesilaus, in the early fourth century (, ). Again, the examples
extend from the fifth century into the Hellenistic period. Examples derived
from Herodotus play no part in Polybius’ mental framework, at least in the
surviving text, which is less than one-third of the original.
What Polybius does use from archaic or legendary Greek history does not
derive from Herodotus but rather from separate traditions about early Sparta
and its lawgiver, Lycurgus. It is these which he applies to Rome and its con-
stitution in book , and these which he also uses in interpreting the role of
the great Roman general, Scipio Africanus, commander in Spain against the
Carthaginians from ..onwards:
To me it seems that the character and principles of Scipio much re-
sembled those of Lycurgus, the Lacedaimonian legislator. For neither
must we suppose that Lycurgus drew up the constitution of Sparta
under the influence of superstition and solely prompted by the Pythia,
nor that Scipio won such an empire for his country by following the
suggestions of dreams and omens. But...Lycurgusmadehisown
scheme more acceptable and more easily believed by invoking the
oracles of the Pythia in support of projects due to himself, while Scipio
similarly made the men under his command more sanguine and more
ready to face perilous enterprises by instilling into them the belief that
his projects were divinely inspired. (, , –)But the center of Polybius’ historical culture was the experience of the Greek
city-states from the fifth century onwards, and above all from the fourth
century onwards, the period of the rise and intrusion of monarchic power.
Thus, when dealing with the complex and catastrophic events of and
.., which culminated in the more or less simultaneous destruction by
the Romans of Carthage and Corinth, he defends his procedure in taking his
narrative backwards and forwards between the two theatres of war by ref-
erence to existing histories of fourth-century Greece: ‘‘When dealing with
Thessalian affairs and the exploits of Alexander of Pherae, they [these histo-
rians] interrupt the narrative to tell us of the projects of the Lacedaimonians
in the Peloponnese or of those of the Athenians and of what happened in
Macedonia or Illyria, and after entertaining us so tell us of the expedition of
Iphicrates to Egypt and the excesses committed by Clearchus of Pontus’’ (,
, –). Once again, these events, mainly of the s and s.., are assumed