Histories
Megalopolis · -118
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Polybius
Polybius
c. 200 BCE–c. 118 BCE · Megalopolis
Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BCE) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period, born in Megalopolis in Arcadia, in the Peloponnese. A leading figure of the Achaean League, he was deported to Rome as a political hostage in 167 BCE following the Roman defeat of Macedon at Pydna, and there became associated with the circle of Scipio Aemilianus. His major work, The Histories, covers the period roughly 264–146 BCE and analyzes the rise of Rome to Mediterranean dominance, advancing a method of "pragmatic" history grounded in eyewitness inquiry and political causation. He is also known for his theory of the mixed constitution and the cyclical succession of government forms (anacyclosis), which influenced later political thought.
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→
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Stop 1 of 7200 BCEBorn
MegalopolisArcadia (Greece)
What they did here
Born c.200 BCE in the Arcadian city of Megalopolis, son of Lycortas, a leading statesman of the Achaean League; he served the League as a cavalry commander (hipparch) in 170/169 BCE.
About Megalopolis
The 'Great City' of Arcadia, founded as a federal bulwark against Sparta and birthplace of Polybius, the historian who explained to the Greeks how Rome came to rule the world.
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Polybius’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Terence, Posidonius of Apamea
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Polybius’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.