Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Hannibal's March Through the Alps
Before he acquired the friendship of the Scipio who afterwards became famous as the conqueror of Carthage in the third Punic War. Polybius had received the education of a statesman and a soldier, and his intimacy with Scipio led to his accompany ing that general in the campaigns against Carthage and against Numantia, in which it is believed that he rendered some service as an engineer. He wrote his history for the purpose Of explaining to his Greek countrymen how Rome had come to be the mistress Of the world. In pursuit of the information which he required he travelled widely, and in particular made the journey across the Alps in order to follow and to see for himself the route that had been taken by Hannibal. He says that he had had the opportunity of inquiring about the events of the march from men who had taken part in it. His residence in Rome began half a century after the march, and he was then between thirty-one and forty-one years old. He may very well have had the opportunity of dis cussing the events oi 218 with Carthaginians who had accompanied Hannibal, with Greek officers who had been on his staff, and with Romans who had taken part in the operations against him. As he wrote he had before him the accounts of earlier authors, some of whom were Roman, and one probably a Greek. In point of time he stood to the events of 218 as a man who was born in 1871 would stand to the Crimean War.
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