Polybius

Polybius was born around 200 BC at Megalopolis in Arcadia, the son of Lycortas, a leading statesman of the Achaean League. He followed his father into public life and held high office in the League's cavalry command. After Rome's victory over Macedon at Pydna in 168 BC he was one of about a thousand Achaean leaders deported to Italy.

In Rome he became a friend and tutor of the young Scipio Aemilianus, through whom he met leading men of the Republic. Released with the other survivors in 150 BC, he later accompanied Scipio on campaign, was present at the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, and helped to arrange the settlement of Greece after the sack of Corinth. He travelled widely, died around 118 BC, and is said to have fallen from a horse.

His Histories, in forty books of which only the first five survive complete, set out to explain how Rome gained dominion over almost the whole inhabited world between 220 and 167 BC. The rest is preserved in excerpts. The work is known for its insistence on accurate evidence and on causes, and for its analysis in Book VI of the Roman constitution as a mixture of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy.