history is to teach lessons of permanent worth "by means of real deeds and words[1]." At the same time, he is keenly alive to the power of oratory. He observes how a single weighty speaker may turn the tide at a crisis[2], and he apparently feels bound to make some attempt at representing oratorical effect. When he makes his persons speak, he does so much in the spirit of Thucydides, though less elaborately: that is, he has some definite points or arguments which he wishes to present in the most vivid form at a critical moment. Like Thucydides, he sometimes balances the harangues of generals on opposite sides[3]. Sometimes he begins to give merely the purport of what was said, and then passes from the oblique to direct speech[4], as Thucydides occasionally does. And it may be concluded that, like Thucydides, he gave the "general sense" faithfully whenever it could be ascertained[5]. But Polybius stands alone in this respect among the historical writers after Xenophon. In the period between
- ↑ Polyb. ii. 56: ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ (i.e. in Tragedy) δεῖ διὰ τῶν πιθανωτάτων λόγων ἐκπλῆξαι καὶ ψυχαγωγῆσαι κατὰ τὸ παρὸν τοὺς ἀκούοντας, ἐνθάδε δὲ (in History) διὰ τῶν ἀληθινῶν ἔργων καὶ λόγων εἰς τὸν πάντα χρόνον διδάξαι καὶ πεῖσαι τοὺς φιλομαθοῦτνας.
- ↑ Polyb. xi. 10: οὕτως εἷς λόγος, εὐκαίρως ῥηθεὶς ὑπ' ἀνδρὸς ἀξιοπίστου, πολλάκις οὐ μόνον ἀποτρέπει τῶν χειρίστων ἀλλὰ καὶ παρορμᾷ πρὸς τὰ κάλλιστα τοὺς ἀνθρώπους.
- ↑ E.g. of Hannibal and Scipio, Polyb. iii. 108—111.
- ↑ Polyb. xi. 28; xxii. 14.
- ↑ See Polyb. xxx. 4: ἦν δ' ὁ νοῦς τῆς ἀποκρίσεως τοιοῦτος,—the ξύμπασα γνώμη of Thuc. i. 22.
