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    Primary Sources : Armies

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    Polybius, a Greek historian sent to Rome in 167 BC, is considered the most important source for accounts of the Punic Wars in the 2nd century BC between Rome and Carthage. Polybius authored a now lost manual on military tactics and his most famous work, The Histories, written after 146 BC. The Histories provide a largely objective and neutral account of the wars from both the Roman and Carthaginian perspectives, as Polybius personally interviewed participants from both sides. While some debate the accuracy of Polybius's account, modern historians generally accept it as reliable. When Polybius's own account is incomplete, historians rely on the Roman historian Livy, who heavily used Polybius

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    Primary Sources : Armies

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    Polybius, a Greek historian sent to Rome in 167 BC, is considered the most important source for accounts of the Punic Wars in the 2nd century BC between Rome and Carthage. Polybius authored a now lost manual on military tactics and his most famous work, The Histories, written after 146 BC. The Histories provide a largely objective and neutral account of the wars from both the Roman and Carthaginian perspectives, as Polybius personally interviewed participants from both sides. While some debate the accuracy of Polybius's account, modern historians generally accept it as reliable. When Polybius's own account is incomplete, historians rely on the Roman historian Livy, who heavily used Polybius

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    Polybius, a Greek historian sent to Rome in 167 BC, is considered the most important source for accounts of the Punic Wars in the 2nd century BC between Rome and Carthage. Polybius authored a now lost manual on military tactics and his most famous work, The Histories, written after 146 BC. The Histories provide a largely objective and neutral account of the wars from both the Roman and Carthaginian perspectives, as Polybius personally interviewed participants from both sides. While some debate the accuracy of Polybius's account, modern historians generally accept it as reliable. When Polybius's own account is incomplete, historians rely on the Roman historian Livy, who heavily used Polybius

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    20 views2 pages

    Primary Sources : Armies

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    Shinedin
    Polybius, a Greek historian sent to Rome in 167 BC, is considered the most important source for accounts of the Punic Wars in the 2nd century BC between Rome and Carthage. Polybius authored a now lost manual on military tactics and his most famous work, The Histories, written after 146 BC. The Histories provide a largely objective and neutral account of the wars from both the Roman and Carthaginian perspectives, as Polybius personally interviewed participants from both sides. While some debate the accuracy of Polybius's account, modern historians generally accept it as reliable. When Polybius's own account is incomplete, historians rely on the Roman historian Livy, who heavily used Polybius

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    Primary sources[edit]

    Polybius

    The main source for almost every aspect of the Punic Wars[note 1] is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 
    118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage.[2] His works include a now-largely-lost
    manual on military tactics,[3] but he is best known for The Histories, written sometime after 146 BC.[2]
    [4]
     Polybius's work is considered broadly objective and largely neutral as
    between Carthaginian and Roman points of view.[5][6] Polybius was an analytical historian and
    wherever possible personally interviewed participants, from both sides, in the events he wrote about.
    [7][2][8]

    The accuracy of Polybius's account has been much debated over the past 150 years, but the
    modern consensus is to accept it largely at face value and the details of the war in modern sources
    are largely based on interpretations of Polybius's account. [2][9] The modern historian Andrew Curry
    sees Polybius as being "fairly reliable"; [10] while Craige Champion describes him as "a remarkably
    well-informed, industrious, and insightful historian". [11] Much of Polybius's account of the Second
    Punic War is missing, or only exists in fragmentary form.
    The account of the Roman historian Livy, who relied heavily on Polybius, is used by modern
    historians where Polybius's account is not extant. [12][13] However, the classicist Adrian
    Goldsworthy says Livy's "reliability is often suspect";[14] and the historian Phillip Sabin refers to Livy's
    "military ignorance".[15]
    Other, later, ancient histories of the war exist, although often in fragmentary or summary form.
    [16]
     Modern historians usually take into account the writings of various Roman annalists, some
    contemporary; the Greek Diodorus Siculus; and the later Roman
    historians, Plutarch, Appian and Dio Cassius, described by John Francis Lazenby as "clearly far
    inferior" to Livy.[12][note 2][2][17] Other sources include coins, inscriptions, archaeological evidence and
    empirical evidence from reconstructions.[18]

    Opposing forces[edit]
    Armies[edit]
    Main articles: Roman army of the mid-Republic and Military of Carthage
    Detail from the Ahenobarbus relief showing two Roman foot-soldiers from the second century BC

    Most male Roman citizens were eligible for military service and would serve as infantry, with the
    wealthier equites providing a cavalry component. Traditionally, when at war the Romans would raise
    two legions, each of 4,200 infantry[note 3] and 300 cavalry. Approximately 1,200 of the infantry, poorer
    or younger men unable to afford the armour and equipment of a standard legionary, served
    as javelin-armed skirmishers, known as velites. They carried several javelins, which would be thrown
    from a distance, a short sword and a 90-centimetre (3 ft) shield.[21] The balance were equipped
    as heavy infantry, with body armour, a large shield and short thrusting swords. They were divided
    into three ranks, of which the front rank also carried two javelins, while the second and third ranks
    had a thrusting spear instead. Both legionary sub-units and individual legionaries fought in relatively
    open order. It was the long-standing Roman procedure to elect two men each year, known
    as consuls, as senior magistrates, who at time of war would each lead an army. An army was
    usually formed by combining two Roman legions with a similarly sized and equipped pair of legions
    provided by their Latin allies; these legions usually had a larger attached complement of cavalry than
    Roman ones.[22][23][24]

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