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Polybius Quotes
203 BC–120 BC Greece
Polybius (Πολύβιος; c. 203 BC – 120 BC) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period noted for his work The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes the rise of the Roman Republic to the status of dominance in the ancient Mediterranean world and includes his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC.
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All things are subject to decay and change.
There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man.
Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.
In all human affairs, and especially in those that relate to war, ... leave always some room to fortune, and to accidents which cannot be foreseen.
The government will take the fairest of names, but the worst of realities—mob rule.
This is a sworn treaty made between us, Hannibal … and Xenophanes the Athenian ... in the presence of all the gods who possess Macedonia and the rest of Greece.
Surely it would have been much more dignified and fairer to include Philip's achievements in the history of Greece than to include the history of Greece in that of Philip.
The Roman shields...were far more serviceable for defence and their swords for attack, the Gaulish sword being only good for a cut and not for a thrust.
For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting the whole inhabited world to their sole government—a thing unique in history?
For in their anxiety to get the better of Philip and humiliate the Macedonians, they have without knowing it invoked such a cloud from the west as may, perhaps, at first only cast its shadow on Macedonia, but in time will be the cause of great evil to all Greece.
How highly should we honor the Macedonians, who for the greater part of their lives never cease from fighting with the barbarians for the sake of the security of Greece? For who is not aware that Greece would have constantly stood in the greater danger, had we not been fenced by the Macedonians and the honorable ambition of their kings?
For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune has guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them to incline towards one and the same end; a historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose.
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