Meggie Macdonald

It seems I haven’t been able to get Polybius out of my head.  No, I’m not hearing voices or any such thing like that.  But my recent (and continuous) work on the lead-up to the Second Punic War (aka the Hannibalic War) has had been thinking about this austere Greek historian on and off for quite some time.

I’ve narrowed my focus for this project onto Polybius for the foreseeable future because, barring anything else, he is one of the most complete primary sources available on the Second Punic War and his background as a politician and diplomat (albeit as a hostage) make him an excellent candidate for an informed and knowledgeable perspective on the dealings between Rome and Carthage in the third century BC.

Why not Livy or Appian or Cornelius Nepos, you say?  Well, for starters, Livy is a great source for Latin literary technique and technical details on the campaigns and battles of the war.  I have no doubt that he will start haunting me with just as much penache as Polybius is doing currently when it comes to working on the nature of the war and how it played out.  For now, however, he’s not the best option for someone researching the lead-up to the war or, as my OAC history teacher would say, the long- and short-term causes of the war.  Livy’s work suggests an inevitability about the war, as though Rome and Carthage – presupposing the conclusion that Vergil made in The Aeneid, Book IV – were great enemies destined to come into conflict until one of them was completely utterly and heartwrenchingly defeated.  Livy makes you wish there was more of Livy still extant.

Polybius is a bit more withdrawn or cynical, if you like.  He knows that what happened in the third century happened and cannot be changed, so he looks at it from a more critical perspective and suggests, in a sly way, two options:  if we take the cause of war to be the attack on Saguntum, then the Carthaginians are to blame, but if we take the cause of war to be the unlawful removal of Sardinia by Rome, then the blame for the war falls on Rome (III.30).  This statement, and the language with which it is conveyed, suggest a scholarly ambiguity that tells more than any direct comment possibly could.  This is what has Polybius swimming around in my head and what, I hope, will form a solid lynchpin for my arguments about treaty precedents and potential misunderstandings that could explain the vehemence of the outbreak of the Second Punic War.