The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

192 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

Rome before he was allowed to return to Greece,
and during that time he conceived the idea of his
work and wrote a considerable part of it (at least
fifteen Books). His original design was to relate
the history of the advance of Roman conquest,
through a period of fifty-three years from the eve
of the Second Punic war (220 B.c.) to the Roman
conquest of Macedonia (168 B.c.). He explains
very fully why he chose his starting-point. There
broke out almost at the same moment three
great conflicts: the war of Rome with Carthage,
the war of the Leagues in Greece (in which the
Achaeans and Philip were ranged against the
Aetolians), and the war in the East between
Antiochus and Ptolemy Philopator. Up to that
epoch, events happening in the various quarters
of the world were unconnected and did not bear
upon each other either in their purposes or in their
issues. But from this time Italian and African
affairs begin to come into relation with Asiatic
and Greek affairs, and history begins to assume
the form, not of strewn disiecta membra, but of a
single organic body (aowaroet8 1).
But, while Polybius marks this date as the
proper beginning of his work, he goes back farther
in a long introduction, filling two Books, in which
he sketches the earlier history of the relations of
Rome with Carthage, including the First Punic
1. 3. 4. This unity does not become clear till after the defeat of
Carthage; but the Eastern events during the Second Punic war went to
determine the subsequent intervention of Rome.