Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic World

Book excerpt: This volume contains nineteen of the more important of Frank Walbank's essays on Polybius and is prefaced by a critical discussion of the main aspects of work done on that author. Several of these essays deal with specific historical problems for which Polybius is a major source. Five deal with Polybius as an historian and three with his attitude towards Rome; one of these raises the question of 'treason' in relation to Polybius and Josephus. Finally, two papers discuss Polybius' later fortunes - in England up to the time of John Dryden and in twentieth-century Italy in the work of Gaetano de Sanctis. Several of these essays originally appeared in journals and collections not always easily accessible, and all students of the ancient Mediterranean world will welcome their assembly within a single volume.