by Polybius
But much as he owed to the friendship of the sons of Aemilius, he owed it also to his own energy and cheerful vigour that these sixteen years of exile were not lost time in his life. He employed them, not in fruitless indulgence in homesickness, or in gloomy brooding over his wrongs, but in a careful and industrious study of the history and institutions of the people among whom he was compelled to reside; in ingratiating himself with those members of the Senate who he thought might be useful to his countrymen; and in forming and maturing his judgment as to the course of policy they ought to pursue. Nor was he without means of gratifying lighter tastes. He was an active sportsman: and the boar-hunting in the district of Laurentum not only diverted his attention from the distressing circumstances of his exile, and kept his body in vigorous health, but obtained for him the acquaintance of many men of rank and influence. Thus for instance his intimacy with the Syrian prince Demetrius, afterwards king Demetrius Soter, was made in the hunting-field: and the value which this young man attached to his advice and support is some measure of the opinion entertained generally of his wisdom, moderation, and good judgment. We have no further details of his life in Rome; but we have what is better, — its fruits, in the luminous account of its polity, the constitution of its army, and the aims of its statesmen.
At last the time came when he was once more free to visit his own country, or to extend his knowledge by visiting the countries which he wished to describe. After repeated applications to the Senate by embassies from Achaia, made without avail, in B.C. 151 Polybius appeared in person to plead the cause before the Fathers. There was now, it was thought, no reason for retaining these unfortunate men. The original thousand had shrunk to less than three hundred; middle-aged men had become in sixteen years old and decrepit; they had lost connexions and influence in the Peloponnese; they had learnt by bitter experience the impossibility of resisting the power of Rome, and were no longer likely to venture on organising any opposition. Their longer detention could only be a measure of vengeance, and useless vengeance. Still the debate in the Senate was long and doubtful, until it was brought to a conclusion by the contemptuous exclamation of Cato: “Are we to sit here all day discussing whether some old Greek dotards are to be buried by Italian or Achaean undertakers?” Polybius, elated by a concession thus ungraciously accorded, wished to enter the Senate once more with a further request for a restitution of their property in Achaia. But Cato bluntly bade him “remember Ulysses, who wanted to go back into the cave of the Cyclops to fetch his cap and belt.”
Polybius seems to have returned to the Peloponnese at once, and to have remained there until B.C. 149, when he was suddenly summoned to serve the government whose enforced guest he had been so long. It was the year in which the Senate had determined to commence their proceedings against Carthage, which were not to be stayed until she was levelled with the ground. In B.C. 150 the victory of Massanissa had restored the oligarchs, who had been superseded by the popular anti-Roman party in Carthage. These men hastened to make every possible offer of submission to Rome. The Senate had made up its mind for war; and yet did not at once say so. After demanding that full satisfaction should be made to Massanissa, it next decreed that the Carthaginians must at once give three hundred of their noblest youths as hostages to the Roman consuls Manilius and Censorinus, who had sailed to Lilybaeum with secret orders to let no concession induce them to stop the war until Carthage was destroyed. There was naturally some hesitation in obeying this demand at Carthage; for the hostages were to be given to the Romans absolutely without any terms, and without any security. They felt that it was practically a surrender of their city. To overcome this hesitation Manilius sent for Polybius, perhaps because he had known and respected him at Rome, and believed that he could trust him; perhaps because his well-known opinion, as to the safety in trusting the Roman fides, might make him a useful agent. But also probably because he was known to many influential Carthaginians, and perhaps spoke their language. He started for Lilybaeum at once. But when he reached Corcyra he was met with the news that the hostages had been given up to the consul: he thought, therefore, that the chance of war was at an end, and he returned to the Peloponnese.
He must soon have learnt his mistake. The Consul, in accordance with his secret instructions, — first to secure the arms in Carthage, and then to insist on the destruction of the town, — gradually let the wretched people know the extent of the submission required of them. These outrageous demands resulted in the Carthaginians taking the desperate resolution of standing a siege. Censorinus and his colleague accordingly began operations; but they were not capable of so great an undertaking. The eyes of the whole army were turned upon Scipio Aemilianus, who was serving as a military tribune. The siege lingered through the summer of B.C. 148 without any result; and when in the autumn Scipio left for Rome, to stand for the Aedileship, he started amidst loud expressions of hope that he might return as Consul, though below the legal age.
The loss of so much of Polybius’s narrative at this point leaves us uncertain when he arrived in Africa: but as he met and conversed with Massanissa, who died in B.C. 148, it seems likely that he did join the army after all in B.C. 149. At any rate he was in Scipio’s train in B.C. 147-146, when he was in chief command of the army, first as consul, and then as proconsul; advised him on sundry points in the formation of his siege works; stood by his side when Carthage was burning; and heard him, as he watched the dreadful sight, utter with tearful eyes the foreboding of what might one day befall Rome. Scipio is also said to have supplied him with ships for an exploring expedition round the coast of Africa; and it seems most likely that this was in his year of consulship (147), as after the fall of Carthage Polybius went home.
The destruction of Carthage took place in the spring of B.C. 146. When Scipio went back to celebrate his triumph, Polybius seems to have returned to the Peloponnese, there to witness another act of vengeance on the part of Rome, and to do what he could to lighten the blow to his countrymen, and to preserve the fragments of their shattered liberties.
Among the restored Achaean exiles were Diaeus, Damocritus, Alcamenes, Theodectes, and Archicrates. They had returned with feelings embittered by their exile; and without any of the experience of active life, which might have taught them to subordinate their private thirst for revenge to the safety of their country. Callicrates died in B.C. 148, and Diaeus was Strategus in B.C. 149-148, 147-146. The appearance of the pseudo-Philip (Andriscus) in Macedonia, and the continued resistance of Carthage during his first year of office (148), encouraged him perhaps to venture on a course, and to recommend the people to adopt a policy, on which he would otherwise not have ventured. Troubles arising out of a disgraceful money transaction between the Spartan Menalchidas, Achaean Strategus, and the Oropians, who had bribed him to aid them against the Athenians, had led to a violent quarrel with Callicrates, who threatened to impeach him for treason to the league in the course of an embassy to Rome. To save himself he gave half the Oropian money to Diaeus, his successor as Strategus (B.C. 149-148). This led to a popular clamour against Diaeus: who, to save himself, falsely reported that the Senate had granted the Achaeans leave to try and condemn certain Spartans for the offence of occupying a disputed territory. Sparta was prepared to resist in arms, and a war seemed to be on the point of breaking out. Callicrates and Diaeus, however, were sent early in B.C. 148 to place the Achaean case before the Senate, while the Spartans sent Menalchidas. Callicrates died on the road. The Senate heard, therefore, the two sides from Diaeus and Menalchidas, and answered that they would send commissioners to inquire into the case. The commissioners, however, were slow in coming; so that both Diaeus and Menalchidas had time to misrepresent the Senate’s answer to their respective peoples. The Achaeans believed that they had full leave to proceed according to the league law against the Spartans; the Spartans believed that they had permission to break off from the league. Once more, therefore, war was on the point of breaking out. Just at this time Q. Caecilius Metellus was in Mace
donia with an army to crush Andriscus. He was sending some commissioners to Asia, and ordered them to visit the Peloponnese on their way and give a friendly warning. It was neglected, and the Spartans sustained a defeat, which irritated them without crushing their revolt. When Diaeus succeeded Damocritus as Strategus in B.C. 147, he answered a second embassy from Metellus by a promise not to take any hostile steps until the Roman commissioners arrived. But he irritated the Spartans by putting garrisons into some forts which commanded Laconia; and they actually elected Menalchidas as a Strategus in opposition to Diaeus. But finding that he had no chance of success Menalchidas poisoned himself.
Then followed the riot at Corinth. Marcus Aurelius Orestes at the head of a commission arrived at last at Corinth, and there informed the magistrates in council that the league must give up Argos, Corinth, and Sparta. The magistrates hastily summoned an assembly and announced the message from the Senate; a furious riot followed, every man in Corinth suspected of being a Spartan was seized and thrown into prison; the very residence of the Roman commissioners was not able to afford such persons any protection, and even the persons of Orestes and his colleagues were in imminent danger.
Some months afterwards a second commission arrived headed by Sextus Julius Caesar, and demanded, without any express menace, that the authors of the riot should be given up. The demand was evaded; and when Caesar returned to Rome with his report, war was at once declared.
The new Strategus, elected in the autumn of B.C. 147, was Critolaus. He was a bitter anti-Romanist like Diaeus: and these statesmen and their party fancied that the Romans, having already two wars on hand, at Carthage and in Spain, would make any sacrifice to keep peace with Achaia. They had not indeed openly declined the demands of Sextus, but, to use Polybius’s expressive phrase, “they accepted with the left hand what the Romans offered with the right.” While pretending to be preparing to submit their case to the Senate, they were collecting an army from the cities of the league. Inspired with an inexplicable infatuation, which does not deserve the name of courage, Critolaus even advanced northwards towards Thermopylae, as if he could with his petty force bar the road to the Romans and free Greece. He was encouraged, it was said, by a party at Thebes which had suffered from Rome for its Macedonising policy. But, rash as the march was, it was managed with at least equal imprudence. Instead of occupying Thermopylae, they stopped short of it to besiege Trachinian Heracleia, an old Spartan colony, which refused to join the league. While engaged in this, Critolaus heard that Metellus (who wished to anticipate his successor Mummius) was on the march from Macedonia. He beat a hasty retreat to Scarpheia in Locris, which was on the road leading to Elateia and the south; here he was overtaken and defeated with considerable slaughter. Critolaus appears not to have fallen on the field; but he was never seen again. He was either lost in some marshes over which he attempted to escape, as Pausanias suggests, or poisoned himself, as Livy says. Diaeus, as his predecessor, became Strategus, and was elected for the following year also. Diaeus exerted himself to collect troops for the defence of Corinth, nominally as being at war with Sparta. He succeeded in getting as many as fourteen thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry, consisting partly of citizens and partly of slaves; and sent four thousand picked men under Alcamenes to hold Megara, while he himself occupied Corinth. When Metellus approached, however, this outpost at Megara hastily retreated into Corinth. Metellus took up his position in the Isthmus, and offered the Achaeans the fairest terms. Diaeus, however, induced them to reject all offers; and Metellus was kept some time encamped before Corinth.
It was now late in the spring of B.C. 146, and the new Consul, Lucius Mummius, arrived at the Roman camp. He at once sent Metellus back to Macedonia, and quietly awaited the arrival of fresh troops, which he had sent for from Crete and Pergamum, as well as from Italy. He eventually had an army of about thirty thousand men, nearly double of the Greek army in Corinth. Nothing apparently was done till the late summer, or autumn. But then the final catastrophe was rapid and complete. The Roman officers regarded the Achaean force with such contempt, that they did not take proper precautions, so that Diaeus won a slight advantage against one of the Roman outposts. Flushed with this success, he drew out for a pitched battle, in which he was totally defeated. He made his way to Megalopolis, where, after killing his wife, he poisoned himself.
Thus by a series of imprudent measures, which Polybius denounces, but was not at home to oppose, the Achaean league had drifted into downright war with Rome; and, almost without a struggle, had fallen helplessly at her feet, forced to accept whatever her mercy or contempt might grant. Mercy, however, was to be preceded by stern punishment. Corinth was given up to plunder and to fire, and Polybius returned from Africa in time to witness it. The destruction or deportation of works of art, of pictures, statues, and costly furniture, he could not prevent; but he spoke a successful word to preserve the statues of Philopoemen in the various cities from destruction; and also begged successfully for the restoration of some of the Eponymous hero Achaeus, and of Philopoemen and Aratus, which had already been transported as far as Acarnania on their way to Italy. He also dissuaded his friends from rushing to take their share in the plunder by purchasing the confiscated goods of Diaeus, which were put to auction and could be bought at low rates; and he refused to accept any of them himself.
The settlement of the territories of the league was put into the hands of a commission of ten men who were sent out after the sack of Corinth; while Mummius, after seeing that such towns in the Peloponnese as had joined in the war were deprived of their fortifications and arms, and after inflicting punishment upon other towns in Greece which had shown active sympathy with Perseus, especially Thebes and Chalcis, returned home to celebrate his triumph, which was adorned with marble and bronze statues and pictures from Corinth. The commissioners who had been sent out to make a final settlement of Greece, or Achaia, as it was henceforth to be called in official language, settled the general plan in conjunction with Mummius; but the commissioners continued their labours for six months, at the end of which time they departed, leaving Polybius to settle with each town the details of their local legislation. The general principles which the commissioners laid down were first, the entire abolition of all the leagues, and consequently of the league assemblies; each town, with its surrounding district, which had once formed a canton in the league, was to be separate and independent: its magistrates, secondly, were to be selected according to a fixed assessment of property, the old equality or democracy being abolished: thirdly, no member of one canton might own property in another: fourthly, the Boeotians were ordered to pay a heavy compensation to the Heracleots and Euboeans, and the Achaeans to the Spartans: lastly, a fixed tribute to Rome was imposed on all states in Greece. Some of these measures were in a few years’ time relaxed, the fines were mitigated, the rule against inter-possession of property was abolished, and the league assemblies were again allowed for certain local purposes. But this was the end of the league as a free federation. It is often said that “Greece was now reduced to the form of a Roman province under the name of Achaia.” This is true in a sense, and yet is misleading. Achaia did not become a province like the other provinces, yearly allotted to a proconsul or propraetor or legatus, until the time of Augustus. Such direct interference from a Roman magistrate as was thought necessary was left to the governor of Macedonia. Yet in a certain sense Achaia was treated as a separate entity, and had a “formula,” or constitution, founded on the separate local laws which the commissioners found existing, or imposed, with the help of Polybius, on the several states; it paid tribute like other provinces, and was in fact, though called free, subject to Rome.
Polybius performed his task of visiting the various towns in the Peloponnese, explaining when necessary the meaning of the new arrangements, and advising them, when they had to make others for themselves, so much to the satisfaction of every one, that there was a universal feeling that he had been a benefactor to his country, and had made the bes
t of their situation that could be made. Statues of him are mentioned by Pausanias in several places in the Peloponnese: in Mantinea and at Megalopolis, with an inscription in elegiacs to the effect that “he had travelled over every land and sea; was an ally of the Romans, and mitigated their wrath against Greece.” Another in the temple of Persephone, near Acacesium, under which was a legend stating that “Greece would not have erred at all if she had obeyed Polybius; and that when she did err, he alone proved of any help to her.” There were others also at Pallantium, Tegea, and Olympia.
In these services to his country Polybius was occupied in B.C. 145. Of his life after that we have no detailed record. He is believed to have visited Scipio while engaged on the siege of Numantia (B.C. 134-132), on which he wrote a separate treatise. We know also that he visited Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Physcon (B.C. 146-117), and expressed his contempt for the state of the people and their rulers. These years must have been also much occupied with the extension of his history, which he originally intended should end with the fall of the Macedonian kingdom (B.C. 168), but which was afterwards continued to the fall of Carthage and Greece (B.C. 146); for even if the history had been completed up to its originally intended limit, and the notice of extension afterwards inserted, there still was enough to do to occupy some years of a busy life; especially as he seems to have carried out his principle that an historian ought to be a traveller, visiting the localities of which he speaks, and testing by personal inspection the possibility of the military evolutions which he undertakes to describe. His travels appear certainly to have embraced the greater part of Gaul, and it even seems possible from one passage that he visited Britain. His explorations on the African coast were doubtless extensive, and he appears to have visited Phoenicia, Cilicia, and Asia Minor. We hear of him at Sardis, though we cannot fix the date of the visit. Lastly, Lucian tells us that, “returning from the country, he had a fall from his horse, the effects of which he died at the age of eighty-two.” No place is given, and no clue which may help us to be certain of the date. Polybius, besides the general history, had written a treatise on Tactics, a panegyric on Philopoemen, a history of the Numantine war, and perhaps a treatise on public speaking (δημηγορία). § 2. — THE SOURCES OF POLYBIUS’S HISTORY