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

196 ANCIENT GREEK HISTORIANS LECT.

of the alleged construction, on the ground that it
was required to complete the last hexad. The
theory has a certain plausibility, but we have to
remember that Polybius changed and enlarged his
plan in the course of its composition, and I find
it difficult to believe that, if he had deliberately
adopted a definite scheme of this kind, he would
have failed to draw attention to it in the preface
to his first or third Book. His solicitude that the
reader should fully grasp his plan and arrangement is hardly reconcilable with his silence on such
a leading point. The symmetry is not clearly
convincing as in the case of Herodotus.
But whether this incomplete symmetry is due
to the design of the author or only to the discernment of an ingenious reader, Polybius has shown
a fine artistic sense of propriety in fixing the place
which he chose for his account of the institutions
of Rome. The third Book concludes with the
defeat of Cannae, which set the mistress of Italy
face to face with the prospect of the extinction of
her power. How was it that, brought to bay, she
baffled the triumphant invader, recovered Italy,
and conquered Carthage? The historian emphasizes the problem. Of course, the measures her
government adopted after the disaster were wise.
But a sagacious policy at the last. moment would
not have availed if Rome had not been what she
was. The explanation lay, Polybius believed, in her
institutions. And so he interrupts the narrative
of the Punic war at this point to describe the