Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

9645

Polybius, Histories, 36.9

nan 1.  Both about the Carthaginians when they were crushed by the Romans and about the affair of the pseudo-Philip many divergent accounts were current in Greece, at first on the subject of the conduct of Rome to Carthage and next concerning their treatment of the pseudo-Philip.,2.  As regards the former the judgements formed and the opinions held in Greece were far from unanimous.,3.  There were some who approved the action of the Romans, saying that they had taken wise and statesmanlike measures in defence of their empire.,4.  For to destroy this source of perpetual menace, this city which had constantly disputed the supremacy with them and was still able to dispute it if it had the opportunity and thus to secure the dominion of their own country, was the act of intelligent and far-seeing men.,5.  Others took the opposite view, saying that far from maintaining the principles by which they had won their supremacy, they were little by little deserting it for a lust of domination like that of Athens and Sparta, starting indeed later than those states, but sure, as everything indicated, to arrive at the same end.,6.  For at first they had made war with every nation until they were victorious and until their adversaries had confessed that they must obey them and execute their orders.,7.  But now they had struck the first note of their new policy by their conduct to Perseus, in utterly exterminating the kingdom of Macedonia, and they had now completely revealed it by their decision concerning Carthage.,8.  For the Carthaginians had been guilty of no immediate offence to Rome, but the Romans had treated them with irremediable severity, although they had accepted all their conditions and consented to obey all their orders.,9.  Others said that the Romans were, generally speaking, a civilized people, and that their peculiar merit on which they prided themselves was that they conducted their wars in a simple and noble manner, employing neither night attacks nor ambushes, disapproving of every kind of deceit and fraud, and considering that nothing but direct and open attacks were legitimate for them.,10.  But in the present case, throughout the whole of their proceedings in regard to Carthage, they had used deceit and fraud, offering certain things one at a time and keeping others secret, until they cut off every hope the city had of help from her allies.,11.  This, they said, savoured more of a despot's intrigue than of the principles of a civilized state such as Rome, and could only be justly described as something very like impiety and treachery.,12.  And there were others who differed likewise from these latter critics. For, they said, if before the Carthaginians had committed themselves to the faith of Rome the Romans had proceeded in this manner, offering certain things one at a time and gradually disclosing others, they would of course have appeared to be guilty of the charge brought against them.,13.  But if, in fact, after the Carthaginians had of their own accord committed themselves to the faith of the Romans and given them liberty to treat them in any way they chose, the Romans, being thus authorized to act as it seemed good to them, gave the orders and imposed the terms on which they had decided, what took place did not bear any resemblance to an act of impiety and scarcely any to an act of treachery; in fact some said it was not even of the nature of an injustice.,14.  For every crime must naturally fall under one of these three classes, and what the Romans did belongs to neither of the three.,15.  For impiety is sin against the gods, against parents, or against the dead; treachery is the violation of sworn or written agreements; and injustice is what is done contrary to law and custom.,16.  Of none of these three were the Romans guilty on the present occasion. Neither did they sin against the gods, against their parents, or against the dead, nor did they violate any sworn agreement or treaty; on the contrary they accused the Carthaginians of doing this.,17.  Nor, again, did they break any laws or customs or their personal faith. For having received from a people who consented willingly full authority to act as they wished, when this people refused to obey their orders they finally resorted to force.

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

6 results
1. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 1.42, 1.44.2, 3.36, 3.49.4, 4.17-4.20 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) 1.44.2. For it began now to be felt that the coming of the Peloponnesian war was only a question of time, and no one was willing to see a naval power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed to Corinth ; though if they could let them weaken each other by mutual conflict, it would be no bad preparation for the struggle which Athens might one day have to wage with Corinth and the other naval powers. 3.49.4. Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little before them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree, and to prepare to execute the sentence, when the second put into port and prevented the massacre. The danger of Mitylene had indeed been great.
2. Cicero, De Lege Agraria, 2.87 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
3. Polybius, Histories, 3.4.1-3.4.8, 36.9.16 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE) 3.4.1.  Now if from their success or failure alone we could form an adequate judgement of how far states and individuals are worthy of praise or blame, I could here lay down my pen, bringing my narrative and this whole work to a close with the last-mentioned events, as was my original intention. 3.4.2.  For the period of fifty-three years finished here, and the growth and advance of Roman power was now complete. 3.4.3.  Besides which it was now universally accepted as a necessary fact that henceforth all must submit to the Romans and obey their orders. 3.4.4.  But since judgements regarding either the conquerors or the conquered based purely on performance are by no means final — 3.4.5.  what is thought to be the greatest success having brought the greatest calamities on many, if they do not make proper use of it, and the most dreadful catastrophes often turning out to the advantage of those who support them bravely — 3.4.6.  I must append to the history of the above period an account of the subsequent policy of the conquerors and their method of universal rule, as well as of the various opinions and appreciations of their rulers entertained by the subjects, and finally I must describe what were the prevailing and domit tendencies and ambitions of the various peoples in their private and public life. 3.4.7.  For it is evident that contemporaries will thus be able to see clearly whether the Roman rule is acceptable or the reverse, and future generations whether their government should be considered to have been worthy of praise and admiration or rather of blame. 3.4.8.  And indeed it is just in this that the chief usefulness of this work for the present and the future will lie. 36.9.16.  of none of these three were the Romans guilty on the present occasion. Neither did they sin against the gods, against their parents, or against the dead, nor did they violate any sworn agreement or treaty; on the contrary they accused the Carthaginians of doing this.
4. Plutarch, Alcibiades, 3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
5. Plutarch, Aristides, 26 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
6. Plutarch, Pericles, 5.3, 13.16, 28.2-28.3, 31.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) 5.3. When he was about to go in doors, it being now dark, he ordered a servant to take a torch and escort the fellow in safety back to his own home. The poet Ion, however, says that Pericles had a presumptuous and somewhat arrogant manner of address, and that into his haughtiness there entered a good deal of disdain and contempt for others; he praises, on the other hand, the tact, complaisance, and elegant address which Cimon showed in his social intercourse. Cf. Plut. Cim. 9 . 28.2. But he appears not to speak the truth when he says, forsooth, that Pericles had the Samian trierarchs and marines brought into the market-place of Miletus and crucified there, and that then, when they had already suffered grievously for ten days, he gave orders to break their heads in with clubs and make an end of them, and then cast their bodies forth without burial rites. 28.3. At all events, since it is not the wont of Duris, even in cases where he has no private and personal interest, to hold his narrative down to the fundamental truth, it is all the more likely that here, in this instance, he has given a dreadful portrayal of the calamities of his country, that he might calumniate the Athenians. When Pericles, after his subjection of Samos, had returned to Athens, he gave honorable burial to those who had fallen in the war, and for the oration which he made, according to the custom, over their tombs, he won the greatest admiration. 31.1. Well, then, whatever the original ground for enacting the decree,—and it is no easy matter to determine this,—the fact that it was not rescinded all men alike lay to the charge of Pericles. Only, some say that he persisted in his refusal in a lofty spirit and with a clear perception of the best interests of the city, regarding the injunction laid upon it as a test of its submissiveness, and its compliance as a confession of weakness; while others hold that it was rather with a sort of arrogance and love of strife, as well as for the display of his power, that he scornfully defied the Lacedaemonians.

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
"historiography,classical"	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 198, 199
"historiography,hellenistic"	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 37
"moralising,implicit"	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 199
alcibiades	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
alternatives	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
antiphon	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
author,distinction from narrator	Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
cassius dio	Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
comedy,comic poets,plutarchs criticism of	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
comedy,comic poets	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
commodus	Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
contrasts,between plutarch and other authors	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
craterus	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
decisions,concerning moral judgement	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
decisions,of the subjects	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
dialogue	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 199
dilemmas,moral	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 198, 199
diodorus siculus	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 198
duris of samos	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
evaluation,internal	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 37
explanations	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
friends/friendship	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
idomeneus	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
juxtaposition,as a means of moralising	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 199
melian dialogue	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 199
motivation,motives	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
narrator,distinction from author	Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
pericles,and the hostile public mind	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
pericles	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
philosophy/philosophers/philosophical	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
poetry,poets (plutarchs attitude towards)	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
polybius	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165; Gruen (2011), Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, 131; Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
punic war,third punic war	Gruen (2011), Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, 131
punic wars	Gruen (2011), Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, 131
rome/romans	Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
rome and romans,and carthaginians	Gruen (2011), Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, 131
scipio the younger	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 37
sources,plutarchs use or criticism of	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
sources	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
sparta(ns)	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
speeches	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 37, 198, 199
stesimbrotus of thasus	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
style	Kingsley Monti and Rood (2022), The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography, 383
thucydides	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 198, 199
treachery,carthaginians and'	Gruen (2011), Rethinking the Other in Antiquity, 131
understand(ing) (as part of the process of moral evaluation)	Chrysanthou (2018), Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement. 165
vignettes,moralising	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 199
xenophon	Hau (2017), Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus, 199