Information regarding the life of Demetrius are drawn mainly from inscription as only Plutarch writes of him, in Life of Aratus, and Polybius makes scarce mentions of him.

Polybius writes:

Polybius ( 3rd century BC ) writes that " the Romans had freed the Greeks from the enemies of all mankind ".

Polybius writes of an event in which the Dardani ask for Roman aid against their enemies.

If one follows Polybius, the course of events was the following: Despite the Carthaginian pre-war naval advantage, the Roman landing was virtually unopposed.

Polybius ( c. 203 – 120 BC ) wrote on the rise of Rome to world prominence, and attempted to harmonize the Greek and Roman points of view.

As Polybius notes, " How much more serious was the defeat of Cannae, than those that preceded it can be seen by the behavior of Rome ’ s allies ; before that fateful day, their loyalty remained unshaken, now it began to waver for the simple reason that they despaired of Roman Power.

Polybius and Plutarch, a Greek author writing under the Roman empire, cite a battle at Mt.

Polybius describes the system for the distribution of watchwords in the Roman military as follows:

During the height of the Roman Empire, famous historians such as Polybius, Livy and Plutarch documented the rise of the Roman Republic, and the organization and histories of other nations, while statesmen like Julius Caesar, Cicero and others provided us with examples of the politics of the republic and Rome's empire and wars.

According to Polybius, Roman institutions were the backbone of the empire but Roman law is the medulla.

Polybius had the opportunity to return to Macedonia in 152 BC ; he elected to stay, however, in Rome, as by that time he had placed his allegiance in the Roman Republic.

Polybius ’ father, Lycortas, was a prominent advocate of neutrality during the Roman war against Perseus of Macedonia.

Following the destruction of Corinth in the same year, Polybius returned to Greece, making use of his Roman connections to lighten the conditions there.

In addition, Polybius wrote an extensive treatise entitled Tactics, which may have detailed Roman and Greek military tactics.

Peter Green suggests it would be well to remember Polybius was chronicling Rome's history for a Greek audience with the aim of convincing them of the necessity of accepting Roman rule – which he believed was inevitable.

However, Greek-influenced Roman authors, such as Polybius and Cicero, sometimes also used the term as a translation for the Greek politeia which could mean regime generally, but could also be applied to certain specific types of regime which did not exactly correspond to that of the Roman Republic.

The Greek historian Polybius, writing more than a century before Livy, became one of the first to describe the emergence of the Roman Empire.

As Polybius had narrated the events by which the Roman Empire had reached its greatness, so Zosimus undertook the task of developing the events and causes which led to its decline ( i. 57 ).

Though the decline of the Roman Empire was the main subject which Zosimus selected, it was perhaps his ambition to imitate Polybius which led him to introduce various matters connected with Persian, Grecian, and Macedonian history, which are not very intimately connected with his main design.

Much of what is known of this century comes from the works of the Roman historian Polybius, whose main concern is the story of how Rome comes to dominate the known world.

* 203 BC – Polybius, Greek historian, famous for his book called " The Histories " or " The Rise of the Roman Empire ", covering in detail the period between 220 and 146 BC ( d. 120 BC )

* Polybius: The Rise of the Roman Empire at LacusCurtius

Due to his devotion to her, Messalina was able to manipulate Claudius into ordering the exile or execution of various people: the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger ; Claudius ’ nieces Julia Livilla and Julia ; Marcus Vinicius ( husband of Julia Livilla ); consul Gaius Asinius Pollio II ( see Vipsania Agrippina ); the elder Poppaea Sabina ( mother of Empress Poppaea Sabina, second wife of Nero ); consul Decimus Valerius Asiaticus ; and Polybius.

* At Polybius ' request, Scipio Aemilianus manages to gain the support of the Roman statesman Cato the Elder ( whose son has married Scipio's sister Aemilia ) for a proposal to release ( and return to Greece ) the 300 Achaean internees who are still being held without trial after being deported to Rome in 167 BC.

* Polybius, Greek historian, famous for his book called " The Histories " or " The Rise of the Roman Empire ", covering in detail the period between 220 and 146 BC ( d. 120 BC )

The Carthaginian army in Iberia, excluding the forces in Africa, totaled, according to Polybius, 90, 000 infantry, 12, 000 cavalry and 37 war elephants: it was thus one of the largest in the Hellenistic world and equal in numbers to any that the Romans had yet fielded.

Polybius gives as an image of society within an Illyrian kingdom as peasant infantry fought under aristocrats which he calls in Greek Polydynastae ( Greek: Πολυδυνάστες ) where each one controlled a town within the kingdom.

According to Polybius, Ptolemy had 70, 000 infantry, 5, 000 cavalry, and 73 war elephants and Antiochus 62, 000 infantry, 6, 000 cavalry, and 102 elephants.

W. Ewing suggests that Kamon probably corresponds to Kamun taken by the Seleucid king Antiochus III, on his march from Pella to Gephrun ( Polybius Book V. 70: 12 ).

According to Polybius he arrived in Italy accompanied by 20, 000 foot soldiers and 4, 000 horsemen, and only a few elephants.

Lycortas attracted the suspicion of the Romans, and Polybius subsequently was one of the 1, 000 Achaean nobles who were transported to Rome as hostages in 167 BC, and was detained there for 17 years.

According to Polybius and Livy, 5, 000 Macedonians had been killed.

Livy mentions that other sources claim 32, 000 Macedonians were killed and even one writer who due to " boundless exaggeration " claims 40, 000 but concludes that Polybius is the trustworthy source on this matter.

" Polybius reports 5, 700 dead: 4, 000 Gauls, 1, 500 Spanish and Africans, and 200 cavalry.

Polybius sets the number at 16, 000 and 20, 000 allies, " this being the strength of their complete army for decisive operations, when the consuls chance to be united.

According to Polybius, the Syrians suffered a little under 10, 000 foot dead, about 300 horse and 5 elephants, 4, 000 men were taken prisoner.

According to Polybius the total trek was 9, 000 stadia, about.

Polybius says that they had begun the Alpine venture with 38, 000 men and 8, 000 cavalry.

Polybius relates that the Celts were close neighbors of the Etruscans and " cast covetous eyes on their beautiful country.

The archaeological evidence from Bologna and its vicinity contradicts the testimony of Polybius and Livy on some points, who say the Boii expelled the Etruscans and perhaps some were forced to leave.

When the Achaean hostages were released in 150 BC, Polybius was granted leave to return home, but the next year he went on campaign with Scipio Aemilianus to Africa, and was present at the capture of Carthage, which he later described.

The geographical works of Dicaearchus were, according to Strabo, criticised in many respects by Polybius ; and Strabo himself is dissatisfied with his descriptions of western and northern Europe, where Dicaearchus had never visited.

The significant historians in the period after Alexander were Timaeus, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Appian of Alexandria, Arrian, and Plutarch.

Another extraordinary usage of siege-mining in the ancient Greece, where during Philip V of Macedon's siege of the little town of Prinassos, according to Polybius, " the ground around the town were extremely rocky and hard, making any siege-mining virtually impossible.

Varro lacked the powerful descendants that Paullus had: descendants who were willing and able to protect his reputation — most notably, Paullus was the grandfather of Scipio Aemilianus, the patron of Polybius.

As Polybius wrote, " the maniples were nearer each other, or the intervals were decreased ... and the maniples showed more depth than front.

Polybius claims that, " as their outer ranks were continually cut down, and the survivors forced to pull back and huddle together, they were finally all killed where they stood.

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius ' defects in his L ' arte della Guerra ( Florence, 1521 ), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius ' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius ' opinion that the survival of Vegetius ' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

Outstanding literary figures of the Hellenistic period were Menander, the chief representative of a newer type of comedy ; the poets Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apollonius Rhodius, author of the Argonautica ; and Polybius, who wrote a detailed history of the Mediterranean world.

Niccolò Machiavelli attempted to address Vegetius's defects in his L ' arte della Guerra ( Florence, 1521 ), with heavy use of Polybius, Frontinus and Livy, but Justus Lipsius ' accusation that he confused the institutions of diverse periods of the Roman Empire and G. Stewechius ' opinion that the survival of Vegetius ' work led to the loss of his named sources were more typical of the late Renaissance.

Before then, says Polybius, " These plains were anciently inhabited by Etruscans ", before the Gauls took the entire Po valley from them.

Although Polybius says the Etruscans were expelled, he meant perhaps selectively, as Etruscan culture continued in the area until assimilated to the Roman.

The Manuscript Tradition of Polybius by John Michael Moore ( CUP, 1965 ) provides a useful summary of Porphyrogenitus ' commission of the Constantine Excerpts: " He felt that the historical studies were being seriously neglected, mainly because of the bulk of the histories.

The dissertations not embodied in his work were collected by himself and ( after his death ) by his pupil, Camille Jullian, and published as volumes of miscellanies: Recherches sur quelques problèmes d ' Histoire ( 1885 ), dealing with the Roman colonate, the land system in Normandy ; the Germanic mark, and the judiciary organization in the kingdom of the Franks ; Nouvelles recherches sur quelques problèmes d ' histoire ( 1891 ); and Questions historiques ( 1893 ), which contains his paper on Chios and his thesis on Polybius.

Polybius, the Greek historian, says there were about 50 elephants, a Numidian cavalry, and mercenaries.

Polybius says that for two months, the two enemies were stationed close together outside the city without any direct conflict.

The crux of the problem is that there is no contemporaneous account of the conflict ; writers such as Polybius, who might have met persons whose grandparents participated in the conflict, do not mention it, while the writers who do speak of the conflict, such as Livy or Cicero, report fact and fable equally readily, and invariably assume that there were no fundamental changes in Roman institutions in nearly 500 years.