John Dryden - The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 18

This author, so long neglected in the barbarous times of Christianity, and so little known in Europe, (according to the fate which commonly follows the best of writers,) was pulled from under the rubbish which covered him, by the learned bishop, Nicholas the Fifth; and some parts of his history (for with all his diligence he was not able to recover the whole) were by him recommended to a person knowing both in the Greek and Roman tongues, and learned for the times in which he lived, to be translated into Latin; and, to the honour of our Polybius, he was amongst the first of the Greek writers, who deserved to have this care bestowed on him; which, notwithstanding so many hindrances occurred in this attempt, that the work was not perfected in his popedom, neither was any more than a third part of what is now recovered in his hands; neither did that learned Italian, 16who had undertaken him, succeed very happily in that endeavour; for the perfect knowledge of the Greek language was not yet restored, and that translator was but as a one-eyed man amongst the nation of the blind; only suffered till a better could be found to do right to an author, whose excellence required a more just interpreter than the ignorance of that age afforded. And this gives me occasion to admire, (says Casaubon,) that in following times, when eloquence was redeemed, and the knowledge of the Greek language flourished, yet no man thought of pursuing that design, which was so worthily begun in those first rudiments of learning. Some, indeed, of almost every nation in Europe, have been instrumental in the recovery of several lost parts of our Polybius, and commented on them with good success; but no man before Casaubon had reviewed the first translation, corrected its errors, and put the last hand to its accomplishment. The world is therefore beholden to him for this great work; for he has collected into one their scattered fragments, has pieced them together, according to the natural order in which they were written, made them intelligible to scholars, and rendered the French translator’s task more easy to his hands.

Our author is particularly mentioned with great honour by Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, and Plutarch; and in what rank of writers they are placed, none of the learned need to be informed. He is copied in whole books together, by Livy, commonly esteemed the prince of the Roman history, and translated word for word, though the Latin historian is not to be excused, for not mentioning the man to whom he had been so much obliged, nor for taking, as his own, the worthy labours of another. Marcus Brutus, who preferred the freedom of his country to the obligations which he had to Julius Cæsar, so prized Polybius, that he made a compendium of his works; and read him not only for his instruction, but for the diversion of his grief, when his noble enterprize for the restoration of the commonwealth had not found the success which it deserved. And this is not the least commendation of our author, that he, who was not wholly satisfied with the eloquence of Tully, should epitomise Polybius with his own hand. 17It was on the consideration of Brutus, and the veneration which he paid him, that Constantine the Great took so great a pleasure in reading our author, and collecting the several treaties of his embassies; of which, though many are now lost, yet those which remain are a sufficient testimony of his abilities; and I congratulate my country, that a prince of our extraction (as was Constantine,) has the honour of obliging the Christian world by these remainders of our great historian.

It is now time to enter into the particular praises of Polybius, which I have given you before in gross; and the first of them (following the method of Casaubon,) is his wonderful skill in political affairs. I had read him, in English, with the pleasure of a boy, before I was ten years of age; and yet, even then, had some dark notions of the prudence with which he conducted his design, particularly in making me know, and almost see, the places where such and such actions were performed. This was the first distinction which I was then capable of making betwixt him and other historians which I read early. But when being of a riper age, I took him again into my hands, I must needs say, that I have profited more by reading him than by Thucydides, Appian, Dion Cassius, and all the rest of the Greek historians together; and amongst all the Romans, none have reached him, in this particular, but Tacitus, who is equal with him.

It is wonderful to consider with how much care and application he instructs, counsels, warns, admonishes, and advises, whensoever he can find a fit occasion. He performs all these sometimes in the nature of a common parent of mankind; and sometimes also limits his instructions to particular nations, by a friendly reproach of those failings and errors to which they were most obnoxious. In this last manner he gives instructions to the Mantinæans, the Elæans, and several other provinces of Greece, by informing them of such things as were conducing to their welfare. Thus he likewise warns the Romans of their obstinacy and wilfulness, vices which have often brought them to the brink of ruin. And thus he frequently exhorts the Greeks, in general, not to depart from their dependence on the Romans; nor to take false measures, by embroiling themselves in wars with that victorious people, in whose fate it was to be masters of the universe. But as his peculiar concernment was for the safety of his own countrymen, the Achaians, he more than once insinuates to them the care of their preservation, which consisted in submitting to the yoke of the Roman people, which they could not possibly avoid; and to make it easy to them, by a cheerful compliance with their commands, rather than unprofitably to oppose them with the hazard of those remaining privileges which the clemency of the conquerors had left them. For this reason, in the whole course of his history he makes it his chiefest business to persuade the Grecians in general, that the growing greatness and fortune of the Roman empire was not owing to mere chance, but to the conduct and invincible courage of that people, to whom their own virtue gave the dominion of the world. And yet this counsellor of patience and submission, as long as there was any probability of hope remaining to withstand the progress of the Roman fortune, was not wanting to the utmost of his power to resist them, at least to defer the bondage of his country, which he had long foreseen. But the fates inevitably drawing all things into subjection to Rome, this well-deserving citizen was commanded to appear in that city, 18where he suffered the imprisonment of many years; yet even then his virtue was beneficial to him, the knowledge of his learning and his wisdom procuring him the friendship of the most potent in the senate; so that it may be said with Casaubon, that the same virtue which had brought him into distress, was the very means of his relief, and of his exaltation to greater dignities than those which he lost; for by the intercession of Cato the Censor, Scipio Æmilianus, who afterwards destroyed Carthage, and some other principal noblemen, our Polybius was restored to liberty. After which, having set it down as a maxim, that the welfare of the Achaians consisted, as I have said, in breaking their own stubborn inclinations, and yielding up that freedom which they no longer could maintain, he made it the utmost aim of his endeavours to bring over his countrymen to that persuasion; in which, though, to their misfortunes, his counsels were not prevalent, yet thereby he not only proved himself a good patriot, but also made his fortunes with the Romans. For his countrymen, by their own unpardonable fault, not long afterwards drew on themselves their own destruction; for when Mummius, in the Achaian war, made a final conquest of that country, he dissolved the great council of their commonwealth. 19But, in the mean time, Polybius enjoyed that tranquillity of fortune which he had purchased by his wisdom, in that private state, being particularly dear to Scipio and Lælius, and some of the rest, who were then in the administration of the Roman government. And that favour which he had gained amongst them, he employed not in heaping riches to himself, but as a means of performing many considerable actions; as particularly when Scipio was sent to demolish Carthage, 20he went along with him in the nature of a counsellor and companion of his enterprize. At which time, receiving the command of a fleet from him, he made discoveries in many parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and especially on the shores of Africa; and 21doing many good offices to all sorts of people whom he had power to oblige, especially to the Grecians, who, in honour of their benefactor, caused many statues of him to be erected, as Pausanias has written. The particular gratitude of the Locrians in Italy is also an undeniable witness of this truth; who, by his mediation, being discharged from the burden of taxes which oppressed them, through the hardship of those conditions which the Romans had imposed on them in the treaty of peace, professed themselves to be owing for their lives and fortunes, to the interest only and good nature of Polybius, which they took care to express by all manner of acknowledgment.