Editing Polybius (section)

==Influence==
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[[File:M. Tullius Cicero, Capitoline Museum, Rome.jpg|thumb|left|Marcus Tullius Cicero]]
Polybius was considered a poor stylist by [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], writing of Polybius's history that "no one has the endurance to reach [its] end".<ref>Comp. 4</ref> Nevertheless, clearly he was widely read by Romans and Greeks alike. He is quoted extensively by [[Strabo]] writing in the 1st century BC and [[Athenaeus]] in the 3rd century AD.

His emphasis on explaining causes of events, rather than just recounting events, influenced the historian [[Sempronius Asellio]]. Polybius is mentioned by [[Cicero]] and mined for information by [[Diodorus Siculus|Diodorus]], [[Livy]], [[Plutarch]] and [[Arrian]]. Much of the text that survives today from the later books of ''The Histories'' was preserved in Byzantine anthologies.
[[Image:Charles Montesquieu.jpg|thumb|Montesquieu]]

His works reappeared in the West first in Renaissance [[Florence]]. Polybius gained a following in Italy, and although poor Latin translations hampered proper scholarship on his works, they contributed to the city's historical and political discourse. [[Niccolò Machiavelli]] in his ''[[Discourses on Livy]]'' evinces familiarity with Polybius. Vernacular translations in French, German, Italian and English first appeared during the 16th century.<ref>{{cite book | last = Polybius |author2=Frank W. Walbank |author3=Ian Scott-Kilvert | title = The Rise of the Roman Empire | publisher = [[Penguin Classics]] | year = 1979| isbn = 0-14-044362-2 }}</ref> Consequently, in the late 16th century, Polybius's works found a greater reading audience among the learned public. Study of the correspondence of such men as [[Isaac Casaubon]], [[Jacques Auguste de Thou]], [[William Camden]] and [[Paolo Sarpi]] reveals a growing interest in Polybius's works and thought during the period. Despite the existence of both printed editions in the vernacular and increased scholarly interest, however, Polybius remained an "historian's historian", not much read by the public at large.<ref>{{cite journal
 | last = Burke
 | first = Peter
 | title = A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450-1700
 | year = 1966
 | journal = History and Theory
 | volume = 5
 | issue = 2
 | doi = 10.2307/2504511
 | publisher = History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2
 | jstor=2504511
 | pages = 135–152 [141]}}</ref>

Printings of his work in the [[vernacular]] remained few in number—seven in French, five in English ([[John Dryden]] provided an enthusiastic preface to Sir Henry Sheers' edition of 1693) and five in Italian.<ref>{{cite journal
 | last = Burke
 | first = Peter
 | title = A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450-1700
 | year = 1966
 | journal = History and Theory
 | volume = 5
 | issue = 2
 | doi = 10.2307/2504511
 | publisher = History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2
 | jstor=2504511
 | pages = 135–152 [139]}}</ref>
Polybius's political analysis has influenced republican thinkers from [[Cicero]] to [[Charles de Montesquieu]] to the [[Founding Fathers of the United States]].<ref>Marshall Davies Lloyd, [http://mlloyd.org/mdl-indx/polybius/intro.htm ''Polybius and the Founding Fathers: the separation of powers''], Sept. 22, 1998.</ref> [[John Adams]], for example, considered him one of the most important teachers of constitutional theory. Since the [[Age of Enlightenment]], Polybius has in general held appeal to those interested in [[Hellenistic Greece]] and early Republican Rome, while his political and military writings have lost influence in academia. More recently, thorough work on the Greek text of Polybius, and his historical technique, has increased the academic understanding and appreciation of him as a historian.

According to [[Edward Tufte]], he was also a major source for [[Charles Joseph Minard]]'s figurative map of [[Hannibal]]'s overland journey into [[Italy]] during the [[Second Punic War]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard-hannibal |title=Minard's figurative map of Hannibal's war |publisher=Edwardtufte.com |access-date=2010-02-28}}</ref>

In his ''Meditations On Hunting'', Spanish philosopher [[José Ortega y Gasset]] calls Polybius "one of the few great minds that the turbid human species has managed to produce", and says the damage to the ''Histories'' is "without question one of the gravest losses that we have suffered in our Greco-Roman heritage".

The Italian version of his name, Polibio, was used as a male first name—for example, the composer [[Polibio Fumagalli]]—though it never became very common.

The [[University of Pennsylvania]] has an intellectual society, the Polybian Society, which is named in his honor and serves as a non-partisan forum for discussing societal issues and policy.