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ΦΙΑΙΠΠΟΣ ΤΡΑΓΩΙΔΟϒΜΕΝΟΣ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

F. W. Walbank
F. W. Walbank
Affiliation:
The University, Liverpool
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Extract

‘The story, which ends with the poisoning and suffocation of Demetrius, has reached us in a form which suggests, as do also certain other features of the later life of Philip and of the reign of Perseus, that some author or authors wrote tragedies or historical novels dealing with the ruin of the Macedonian royal house.’ Such is the startling, if cautiously phrased conclusion of a recent historian, discussing the last years of Philip V in a standard work; it is a conclusion which deserves careful consideration, for if it can be substantiated, it will be necessary to revise seriously our usual estimate of Polybius' merits as a historian. And since no discussion of the problem can be fruitful until Polybius' own attitude towards tragedy and its relations to history has been considered, it is from this aspect that Benecke's suggestion must be approached.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , 1938 , pp. 55 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1938

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References

1 Benecke, P. V. M., CAH VIII, 254Google Scholar.

2 Poet. XIII, 3Google Scholar (Butcher's translation).

3 E.g. V, 10, 9; VII, 11; 13.

4 X, 26.

5 V, 102, 1.

6 Poet. IX, 11–12Google Scholar.

7 Poet. VIII, 1seq.Google Scholar

8 I, 35, 4 (from the Antiope; repeated in a paraphrase VIII, 3, 3); V, 106, 4 (origin uncertain); XII, 26, 5 (from the Cresphontes).

9 II, 16, 14; II, 56, 1 seq.; III, 48, 8; VII, 7, 2.

10 II, 16, 14.

11 If Polybius did fulfil this promise in Book XII, the passage has not survived.

12 II, 56–60.

13 The cases of Megalopolis (61, 1 seq.) and the figures of the booty taken (62, 1 seq.) are rather criticisms of Phylarchus' factual accuracy; and, of course, like the whole of the passage, they are even more criticisms of his anti-Achaean point of view.

14 II, 56, 8.

15 III, 48, 8.

16 VII, 7, 2.

17 II, 56, 16. In general, Polybius' emphasis upon causation is too well known to need stressing; cf. III, 6, and Bury, , Ancient Greek Historians, p. 200Google Scholar.

18 It is also borne out by an examination of Polybius' use of the words πραγικος and τραγῳοια in other contexts: e.g. V, 26, 9, τραγικὴ εἴσδος, that is, Apelles' entry into Corinth with great pomp; V, 48, 9, , of a river full of drowning men, with all their baggage, horses, mules and armour; i.e. it is not the tragic (in our modern sense), but the extraordinary (παρηλλαγμένη) nature of the sight that is stressed; VI, 56, 11, ἡ τοιαύτη τραγῳδία used of the pageantry of a religious kind by which the Roman people were kept in a state of awed obedience.

19 I, 1, 2.

20 For the distinction between the incalculable, unforseeable τύχη of Demetrius of Phalerum (cf. Pol. XXIX, 21) and Polybius' own ‘pragmatical’ conception of a force which worked through error and retribution, in a way profitable for the historian to study, see Laqueur, , Polybios, 253–4, 276Google Scholar.

21 II, 56, 10, .

22 I, 35, 1 seq.

23 Quoted again in paraphrase, VIII, 3; 3.

24 Cf. Pol. VII, 12, 2 (referring to the μεταβολή in .

25 There is undoubtedly a gap in the text at this point; otherwise, what follows makes no sense. See Büttner-Wobst (ed. Polyb.) ad loc.

26 Kritische Untersuchungen, 234. It is the failure to realise the extent to which Livy is here following Polybius that robs Conway'sshort study of the question (‘A Graeco-Roman Tragedy,’ Rylands Bulletin, 10, 1926, 309–29)CrossRefGoogle Scholar of any value. While appreciating the tragic form in which the narrative is cast, the writer attempts to attribute it to Livy and to connect it with the dynastic schemes of Augustus.

27 The sentences in italics have only the authority of Livy; the rest is either Polybius or both.

28 Livy connects the passage with the return of Marcius; this is probably to give it an appearance of importance for Roman affairs which much of it does not possess. The fact was, as in the death of Philopoemen (Livy XXXIX, 49–50), Livy liked the story and was not going to leave it out.

29 Pol. XXIII, 10, 15 (Mai) states that the children also were killed. But this can be dismissed in view of the agreement between Livy and the Excerptae Valesianae; cf. also Suidas: .

30 Was this verse (from Stasinus, cf. Alex., Clem., Strom. VI, ii, 19Google Scholar, 1) actually quoted by Philip, or is it part of the tragic elaboration of the historian? The sentiment was a common one and is to be found, for example, in Herodotus (I, 155) and, significantly, in Euripides, , Andromache, 519–21Google Scholar: . We have seen above, § III, how a quotation from Euripides crept into the account of Regulus' downfall. If the present quotation is to be placed in a similar category, its appearance in hexameter form may be not unconnected with the less ‘quotable’ form of Euripides' choral metre. But whether Polybius had, in fact, epic or tragedy in his mind is of course not important; what matters is that the moral emphasis was leading him away from a purely ‘historical’ approach.

31 Pol. XXIII, 10, 16; almost certainly referring to the curses.

32 Pol. V, 9 seq.: XI, 7.

33 Pol. VII, 11; 13, Plut., Arat. 49–51Google Scholar.

34 Pol. XIII, 3.

35 Pol. XV, 22.

36 Pol. XVI, 1.

37 Pol. XV, 20.

38 Pol. I, 4, 1 seq.

39 The factual accuracy of this analysis will, on the other hand, be considered below.

40 Pol. XXIII, 10, 16. This phrase occurs in two other places in Polybius, once exactly the same as here (XXIX, 19, 2, on the folly of the Rhodians), and once with the substitution of τὴν έξώστραν for σκηνήν (XI, 5, 8, on the folly of the Aetolians); in both places it comes somewhat oddly, and without the kind of context which here gives it particular significance. Polybius was always ready to repeat a phrase that took his fancy; thus is also to be found at I, 86, 7, and II, 4, 3.

41 Pol. XXIII, 10, 12. Admittedly, this expression may belong to the excerptor rather than to Polybius himself; but if so, it merely shows that he had appreciated the tone of Polybius' writing in this passage.

42 Pol. XII, 25b, 4. Polybius may, of course, have some information on which the speech is founded; there is no justification for condemning it as pure invention (as is done by Edson, C. F., ‘Perseus and Demetrius,’ Harvard Studies, xlvi, 1935, 196Google Scholar).

43 XXXIX, 23, 5.

44 This passage is taken from Pol. XVIII, 18, which is placed too late in Büttner-Wobst, and should in fact precede XVIII, 6; cf. De Sanctis, , Storia dei Romani, IV, 1, 250Google Scholar, n. 24.

45 XXXIX, 24, 1.

46 Pol. XXII, 14, 7 seq. .

47 Livy (Pol.) XL, 55, 6–8; XLII, 5, 4.

48 Livy (Pol.) XL, 6.

49 Livy (Pol.) XL, 7.

50 Woodhouse, , Aetolia, 258Google Scholar, n. 1.

51 This pro-Demetrian source is probably to be sought in Achaea itself, where there were two opposing traditions for the account of Demetrius' death, cf. Livy (Pol.) XLI, 23, 10–11, and 24, 3–5. Here Callicrates, voicing the view of the anti-Persean, pro-Roman faction, gives what is essentially the account already presented by Polybius, while in reply Archon asserts that nec ob quam causam nec quem ad modum perierit Demetrius scimus. Polybius has followed the general lines of the anti-Persean version, adding details of incident (but not motive) from his Macedonian source. (I am grateful to Mr. A. H. McDonald of University College, Nottingham, for drawing my attention to this passage in Livy.)

52 E.g. Pol. XXII, 18, 10.

53 Cf. Reinach, A. J., BCH 1910, 249–330Google Scholar. It is, however, probable that the alarm felt at Rome was no more justified than it had been during the periods preceding the second war with Philip and that with Antiochus.

54 There are other occasions on which Polybius gives an accurate report of some speech or incident without himself seeing its full implications; cf. Pol. V, 104, the speech of Agelaus of Naupactus in 217 (Walbank, , Aratos of Sicyon, 153–4Google Scholar); Pol. XVIII, 1–12, the conference on the Malian Gulf in November 198 (Holleaux, , REG 1923, 115–71Google Scholar).

55 Pol. XXXIII, 7, 2–4; Livy (Pol.) XXXIX, 53. Polybius' distinction between ot οἱ μὲν Μακεδόνες and is, however, tendenciously over-simplified by the pro-Demetrian tradition.

56 Pol. XXIII, 10, 9. Niese, (Gr. und Maked. Staaten, II, 570, n. 1)Google Scholar appears to identify these men with the five counsellors executed at the instigation of Heracleides of Tarentum (Diod. XXVIII, 2) in or about the year 205; in this case, the delay of twenty years before proceeding against their children would be inexplicable.

57 For the conspiracy of Leontius and Apelles cf. Pol. V, 25–8.

58 An exception to this, however, is the story of the ‘revealing’ of Perseus' plot against Demetrius by the ‘loyal’ Antigonus, the torturing of Xychus and the ‘proof’ that Flamininus' letter was forged. There seems little doubt that Polybius has here accepted a pro-Roman tradition current in Achaea for the facts as well as the motives; cf. n. 51 above, and Edson, op. cit. 200–2.