Histories, Volume 1

About this film

LibriVox recording of Histories, Volume 1 by Polybius. (Translated by William Roger Paton.) Read in English by ARodrigo. Of the forty books which made up the history of Polybius, the first five alone have come down to us in a complete form; of the rest we have only more or less copious fragments. But the general plan and scope of the work are explained by Polybius himself. His intention was to make plain how and why it was that “all the known regions of the civilized world had fallen under the sway of Rome”. This empire of Rome, unprecedented in its extent and still more so in the rapidity with which it had been acquired, was the standing wonder of the age, and “who,” he exclaims, “is so poor-spirited or indolent as not to wish to know by what means, and thanks to what sort of constitution, the Romans subdued the world in something less than fifty-three years?” These fifty-three years are those between 220 (the point at which the work of Aratus ended) and 168 B.C., and extend therefore from the outbreak of the Hannibalic War to the defeat of Perseus at Pydna. To this period then the main portion of his history is devoted from the third to the thirtieth book inclusive. But for clear…

Directors & creators

Polybius

Subjects

librivox; audiobooks;Romans; Italy; greece; Carthage; Sicily; sardinia; megalopolis; macedon; history ancient -- early works to 1800; rome -- history -- republic; 510-30 b.c.; greece -- history -- early works to 1800; 510-30 b.c. -- sources; rome -- history; history ancient; world history -- early works to 1800; achæans; carthaginians; Ætolians; annibal; lilybæum; aratus; cleomenes; peloponnesus; eleans; spendius; demetrius of pharos; macedonians; messana; pontus; saguntum; taurion; afric; amilcar; antigonus; lacedæmonians; Æmilius; dorimachus; numidians; publius

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