Polybius' self-constructed image in the histories and its effect on his historical objectivity

Abstract

Polybius consciously created an image in his Histories that fostered a persona of the author primarily as a teacher, but also as an historian, a politician, and, at times, a Greek. Through this self-constructed image as a teacher Polybius provided didactic lessons for his readers throughout the Histories, a preoccupation which often overshadowed the need to be acutely accurate in his historical narrative. Although J. Marincola in his Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (1997) discussed Polybius’ image as a consciouslyconstructed persona for the reader, this approach has not yet been undertaken by any modern scholar in a specialised study of Polybius. This thesis proposes to fill this gap in Polybian scholarship by first establishing the existence of this self-constructed image, and second demonstrating how it influenced Polybius’ historical accuracy. Part I of this thesis focuses on developing the different aspects of this image of Polybius, aiming to provide a holistic picture of the persona Polybius presented to his audience. It discusses personal, historiographical, and political aspects of this image in the Histories, and how these factors often affected the way he interpreted and presented historical events. Part II provides three case studies that investigate instances where Polybius interpreted events in a way that cannot be verified by the details of his own historical narrative. It is argued that these instances provided didactic opportunities for Polybius and caused him to design his historical narrative in a way that emphasised his didactic image and lessons over his considerations of historical accuracy. This approach highlights both the importance of recognising that the persona of Polybius we get in the Histories was a consciously-designed image of how he wanted to be viewed by his audience, and also that despite his claims to the contrary, historical accuracy was not always Polybius’ only, or even primary, concern.