Polybius: Book 8

Polybius is one of the most remarkable ancient historians, excelling as source, theorist and writer. Book 8 shows many sides of this extraordinary author: the superb narrator, recounting the tragic end of the potentate Achaeus and Hannibal's diverting capture of Tarentum with the aid of wild boar; the technical writer on Archimedes' sensational machines for destroying Roman ships; the zestful polemicist, railing against Theopompus' diatribe on the friends of Philip II; the thinker about his...