![]() ![]() ![]() But this time, Rome did not give a blank cheque to the Achaean League. The Romans believed that the Achaeans had not offered sufficient support during this conflict, and their analysis may have been correct: perhaps, the Achaeans have indeed been dreaming of further expansion once Rome had again recalled its legions. The Macedonian king Perseus and the Roman republic started a war that, within four years, led to the dismantling of the old kingdom. With the cities free and autonomous, the country became unstable, and the Achaean League increased its power. note The Achaeans benefitted from the power vacuum, which Rome had created after it had retreated from Greece after it had successively defeated the Macedonian and Seleucid forces. For a Greek landowner, this was a fate only little better than death.ĭuring his youth, one of the most important states in Greece was the Achaean League, an increasingly powerful federation of city states led by a capable general named Philopoemen (253-183), to whom Polybius dedicated a biography. In fact, he was one of the minor actors, but he had to pay a prize for his role: a temporary loss of his freedom and an involuntary stay abroad. Second Celtiberian War (154-151) Fourth Macedonian War (150-148) Third Punic War (149-146) Achaean War (146)īorn in c.200 BCE, Polybius of Megalopolis witnessed the second half of this process. Third Macedonian War (171-168) Sixth Syrian War (171-168) 1įourth Syrian War (219-217) Second Punic War (218-201), with a digression on the Roman constitutionįifth Syrian War (202-195) Second Macedonian War (200-196) In about five or six generations, a multi-polar world system had been superseded by a superpower without rivals, a hyperpower. Polybius describes how the Roman conquerors defeated Carthage and Macedonia, humiliated the Seleucid king Antiochus III the Great, divided Macedonia, saved the Ptolemaic Empire as a quasi-independent vassal kingdom, and finally, in one blow, put an end to Macedonia, Carthage, and Greece. At the beginning of the First Punic War, in 264 BCE, the world had been divided between a couple of superpowers: the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms, Macedonia, Carthage, and the Roman republic, which had united Italy only recently. ![]() The explanation of this increasing interconnection was, according to Polybius, the rise of Rome. Previously the doings of the world had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of initiative, results, or locality but history has become an organic whole, and the affairs of Italy and Africa have been interlinked with those of Greece and Asia, all leading up to one end. ![]() If you would only read Polybius' accounts of the First and Third Punic Wars, you will immediately notice a difference: the first story is straight-forward and uninterrupted, as if the events were allowed to proceed independent of what happened elsewhere, while the account of the last war is interrupted by reports about contemporary conflicts in Spain, Macedonia, and Greece. Yet, Polybius presents these two conflicts in completely different ways. note Of the thirty-nine books, the first one deals with the First Punic War, according to the author "the longest and most severely contested war in history", note while the final books deal with the Third Punic War, culminating in the sack of Carthage in 146 BC. The Changing Structure of History PolybiusĬarthage is at the beginning of Polybius' World History, and Carthage is at its conclusion. Polybius of Megalopolis (c.200-c.118): Greek historian, author of an important World History that describes the rise of Rome. ![]()
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