Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

by Edith Hall

In 146 BC the rebellious Achaean League, which had earlier striven for Greek autonomy under the magnificent “last of the Greeks,” the Arcadian military tactician Philopoemen, was overwhelmed by the Roman republican army at the battle of Corinth. The Romans obliterated the beautiful ancient port city, a long-standing symbol of Greek commerce, sea power, and alluring temple cults. Polybius, a historian from Arcadia who witnessed the aftermath of the destruction of Corinth, describes boorish Roman soldiers with such contempt for high culture that they threw masterpieces of Greek painting on the ground, including two world-famous pictures of Dionysus and Heracles, and used them as checkerboards. The career of Polybius, born in the late third century BC but surviving until he was over eighty, typifies the Greek attitude to Rome. He had nostalgia for the glory days of Greek freedom and a conviction that Greek culture was superior to all else. But any sentimental patriotism was leavened by an admiration for the Romans’ efficiency, a fascination with Roman history reflected in his brilliant account of the Punic Wars, by ties of affection with individual Roman friends, and by a desire for peace at almost any cost. Although his father was loyal to the Achaean League, Polybius was a soldier and a realist who appreciated the quality of the Roman army. During the conquest of Greece he had supported a policy of cooperation with (although not acquiescence to) Rome against Macedon. But in...