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112-662: These languages were spoken by the people known to Roman and Greek writers as the Keltoi , Celtae , Galli , and Galatae . They were spoken in an area arcing from the northern half of Iberia in the west to north of Belgium , and east to the Carpathian basin and the Balkans as Noric , and in inner Anatolia (modern day Turkey) as Galatian . Even though Breton has been spoken in Continental Europe since at least

224-700: A numerical system , called "the Polybius square ," mentioned in Hist. X.45.6 ff. . This idea also lends itself to cryptographic manipulation and steganography . Modern implementations of the Polybius square, at least in Western European languages such as English , Spanish , French , German and Italian , generally use the Roman alphabet in which those languages are written. However, Polybius himself

336-576: A brief period in the 1330s and 1340s, Castile tended to be nonetheless "essentially unstable" from a political standpoint until the late 15th century. Merchants from Genoa and Pisa were conducting an intense trading activity in Catalonia already by the 12th century, and later in Portugal. Since the 13th century, the Crown of Aragon expanded overseas; led by Catalans , it attained an overseas empire in

448-616: A certain hagiographic tone when writing of his friends, such as Scipio, and subject to a vindictive tone when detailing the exploits of his enemies, such as Callicrates, the Achaean statesman responsible for his Roman exile. As a hostage in Rome, then as client to the Scipios, and after 146 BC, a collaborator with Roman rule, Polybius was probably in no position to freely express any negative opinions of Rome. Peter Green advises that Polybius

560-529: A historian. According to Edward Tufte , he was also a major source for Charles Joseph Minard 's figurative map of Hannibal 's overland journey into Italy during the Second Punic War . In his Meditations On Hunting , Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset calls Polybius "one of the few great minds that the turbid human species has managed to produce", and says the damage to the Histories

672-599: A permanent trading port in the Gadir colony c.  800 BCE in response to the increasing demand of silver from the Assyrian Empire . The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over several centuries. In the 8th century BCE, the first Greek colonies , such as Emporion (modern Empúries ), were founded along

784-568: A population of 100,000 by the 10th century, Toledo 30,000 by the 11th century and Seville 80,000 by the 12th century. During the Middle Ages, the North of the peninsula housed many small Christian polities including the Kingdom of Castile , the Kingdom of Aragon , the Kingdom of Navarre , the Kingdom of León or the Kingdom of Portugal , as well as a number of counties that spawned from

896-725: A population of roughly 53 million, it is the second-largest European peninsula by area, after the Scandinavian Peninsula . The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the River Ebro (Ibēros in ancient Greek and Ibērus or Hibērus in Latin ). The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. Pliny goes so far as to assert that

1008-637: A role in the conflict by providing key naval support to France that helped lead to that nation's eventual victory. After the accession of Henry III to the throne of Castile, the populace, exasperated by the preponderance of Jewish influence, perpetrated a massacre of Jews at Toledo. In 1391, mobs went from town to town throughout Castile and Aragon, killing an estimated 50,000 Jews, or even as many as 100,000, according to Jane Gerber . Women and children were sold as slaves to Muslims, and many synagogues were converted into churches. According to Hasdai Crescas , about 70 Jewish communities were destroyed. During

1120-573: A sudden economic cessation. Many settlements in northern Castile and Catalonia were left forsaken. The plague marked the start of the hostility and downright violence towards religious minorities (particularly the Jews) as an additional consequence in the Iberian realms. The 14th century was a period of great upheaval in the Iberian realms. After the death of Peter the Cruel of Castile (reigned 1350–69),

1232-668: Is a peninsula in south-western Europe . Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees , it includes the territories of Peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal , comprising most of the region, as well as the tiny adjuncts of Andorra , Gibraltar , and, pursuant to the traditional definition of the Pyrenees as the peninsula's northeastern boundary, a small part of France . With an area of approximately 583,254 square kilometres (225,196 sq mi), and

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1344-485: Is considered by some to be the successor of Thucydides in terms of objectivity and critical reasoning , and the forefather of scholarly, painstaking historical research in the modern scientific sense. According to this view, his work sets forth the course of history's occurrences with clearness, penetration, sound judgment, and, among the circumstances affecting the outcomes, he lays special emphasis on geographical conditions. Modern historians are especially impressed with

1456-549: Is exemplified in that of Philip II , who Polybius believed exhibited both excellent military prowess and skill, as well as proficient ability in diplomacy and moral leadership. His beliefs about Philip's character led Polybius to reject the historian Theopompus ' description of Philip's private, drunken debauchery. For Polybius, it was inconceivable that such an able and effective statesman could have had an immoral and unrestrained private life as described by Theopompus. The consequences of bad leadership are also highlighted throughout

1568-489: Is important not only for being the only Hellenistic historical work to survive in any substantial form, but also for its analysis of constitutional change and the mixed constitution. Polybius's discussion of the separation of powers in government, of checks and balances to limit power, and his introduction of "the people", all influenced Montesquieu 's The Spirit of the Laws , John Locke 's Two Treatises of Government , and

1680-583: Is known of Polybius's later life; he most likely accompanied Scipio to Spain, acting as his military advisor during the Numantine War . He later wrote about this war in a lost monograph . Polybius probably returned to Greece later in his life, as evidenced by the many existent inscriptions and statues of him there. The last event mentioned in his Histories seems to be the construction of the Via Domitia in southern France in 118 BC, which suggests

1792-572: Is lost as well. Another missing work was a historical monograph on the events of the Numantine War . The largest Polybian work was, of course, his Histories , of which only the first five books survive entirely intact, along with a large portion of the sixth book and fragments of the rest. Along with Cato the Elder (234–149 BC), he can be considered one of the founding fathers of Roman historiography . Livy made reference to and uses Polybius's Histories as source material in his own narrative. Polybius

1904-621: Is testimony to a considerable input from various waves of (predominantly male) Western Steppe Herders from the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the Bronze Age. Iberia experienced a significant genetic turnover, with 100% of the paternal ancestry and 40% of the overall ancestry being replaced by peoples with steppe-related ancestry. In the Chalcolithic ( c.  3000 BCE), a series of complex cultures developed that would give rise to

2016-598: Is used in contrast to Insular Celtic . However, while many researchers agree with the Insular Celtic hypothesis that the Insular Celtic languages constitute a linguistically distinct branch of Celtic (Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; Schrijver 1995) that has undergone common linguistic innovations, there is no evidence that the Continental Celtic languages can be similarly grouped. Instead,

2128-677: The Ṣaqāliba (literally meaning "slavs", although they were slaves of generic European origin) as well as Sudanese slaves. The Umayyad rulers faced a major Berber Revolt in the early 740s; the uprising originally broke out in North Africa (Tangier) and later spread across the peninsula. Following the Abbasid takeover from the Umayyads and the shift of the economic centre of the Islamic Caliphate from Damascus to Baghdad,

2240-711: The Aurignacian , Gravettian , Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, some of them characterized by the complex forms of the art of the Upper Paleolithic . During the Neolithic expansion , various megalithic cultures developed in the Iberian Peninsula. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, called the Cardium culture , also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of

2352-665: The Ebro ) as far north as the Rhône , but in his day they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar , with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia." According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use Hispania and Hiberia (Greek: Iberia ) as synonyms. The confusion of

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2464-586: The Histories . Polybius saw, for instance, the character and leadership of the later Philip V of Macedon , one of Rome's leading adversaries in the Greek East, as the opposite of his earlier exemplary namesake. Philip V became increasingly tyrannical, irrational and impious following brilliant military and political success in his youth; this resulted, Polybius believed, in his abandonment by his Greek allies and his eventual defeat by Rome in 197 BC. Other important themes running throughout The Histories include

2576-614: The House of Trastámara succeeded to the throne in the person of Peter's half brother, Henry II (reigned 1369–79). In the kingdom of Aragón, following the death without heirs of John I (reigned 1387–96) and Martin I (reigned 1396–1410), a prince of the House of Trastámara, Ferdinand I (reigned 1412–16), succeeded to the Aragonese throne. The Hundred Years' War also spilled over into the Iberian peninsula, with Castile particularly taking

2688-732: The Phoenician alphabet and originated in Southwestern Iberia by the 7th century BCE has been tentatively proposed. In the sixth century BCE, the Carthaginians arrived in the peninsula while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (modern-day Cartagena, Spain ). In 218 BCE, during the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians,

2800-602: The Phoenicians , by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean . Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia , which he wrote about c.  500 BCE . Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with [...] Iberia." According to Strabo , prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος ( Ibēros ,

2912-803: The Strait of Gibraltar and founded upon a vassalage relationship with the Crown of Castile, also insinuated itself into the European mercantile network, with its ports fostering intense trading relations with the Genoese as well, but also with the Catalans, and to a lesser extent, with the Venetians, the Florentines, and the Portuguese. Between 1275 and 1340, Granada became involved in the "crisis of

3024-565: The Third Macedonian War , 1,000 Achaeans (including Polybius) with suspect allegiances were interned in Rome and its surrounding area. Polybius's father, Lycortas, was a prominent advocate of neutrality during the Roman war against Perseus of Macedon in 171-168 BC. Lycortas attracted the suspicion of the Romans, and Polybius subsequently was one of the 1,000 Achaean nobles who were transported to Rome as hostages in 167 BC, and

3136-610: The 15th century, Portugal, which had ended its southwards territorial expansion across the Iberian Peninsula in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve, initiated an overseas expansion in parallel to the rise of the House of Aviz , conquering Ceuta (1415) arriving at Porto Santo (1418), Madeira and the Azores , as well as establishing additional outposts along the North-African Atlantic coast. In addition, already in

3248-506: The 16th century. Consequently, in the late 16th century, Polybius's works found a greater reading audience among the learned public. Study of the correspondence of such men as Isaac Casaubon , Jacques Auguste de Thou , William Camden and Paolo Sarpi reveals a growing interest in Polybius's works and thought during the period. Despite the existence of both printed editions in the vernacular and increased scholarly interest, however, Polybius remained an "historian's historian", not much read by

3360-529: The 6th century AD, it is not considered one of the Continental Celtic languages, as it is a Brittonic language , like Cornish and Welsh . A Gaulish substratum in Breton has been suggested, but that is debated. It is likely that Celts spoke dozens of different languages and dialects across Europe in pre- Roman times, but only a small number are attested : The modern term Continental Celtic

3472-545: The Aetolians, the Carthaginians and the Cretans. Other historians perceive considerable negative bias in Polybius's account of Crete ; on the other hand, Hansen notes that the same work, along with passages from Strabo and Scylax , proved a reliable guide in the eventual rediscovery of the lost city of Kydonia . Polybius was responsible for a useful tool in telegraphy that allowed letters to be easily signaled using

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3584-688: The Carolingian Marca Hispanica . Christian and Muslim polities fought and allied among themselves in variable alliances. The Christian kingdoms progressively expanded south taking over Muslim territory in what is historiographically known as the " Reconquista " (the latter concept has been however noted as product of the claim to a pre-existing Spanish Catholic nation and it would not necessarily convey adequately "the complexity of centuries of warring and other more peaceable interactions between Muslim and Christian kingdoms in medieval Iberia between 711 and 1492"). The Caliphate of Córdoba

3696-560: The Chalcolithic sites of Los Millares, the Argaric culture flourished in southeastern Iberia in from 2200 BC to 1550 BC, when depopulation of the area ensued along with disappearing of copper–bronze–arsenic metallurgy. The most accepted model for El Argar has been that of an early state society, most particularly in terms of class division, exploitation, and coercion, with agricultural production, maybe also human labour, controlled by

3808-665: The Christian Iberian kingdoms by the beginning of the 13th century, in relation to the more or less conflictual border with Muslim lands. By the beginning of the 13th century, a power reorientation took place in the Iberian Peninsula (parallel to the Christian expansion in Southern Iberia and the increasing commercial impetus of Christian powers across the Mediterranean) and to a large extent, trade-wise,

3920-835: The Early Modern Period, between the completion of the Granada War in 1492 and the death of Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the Hispanic Monarchy would make strides in the imperial expansion along the Mediterranean coast of the Maghreb. During the Late Middle Ages, the Jews acquired considerable power and influence in Castile and Aragon. Throughout the late Middle Ages, the Crown of Aragon took part in

4032-525: The Greeks and the Macedonians). While Polybius was not the first to advance this view, his account provides the most cogent illustration of the ideal for later political theorists. A key theme of The Histories is good leadership, and Polybius dedicates considerable time to outlining how the good statesman should be rational, knowledgeable, virtuous and composed. The character of the Polybian statesman

4144-548: The Greeks had called "the whole of the peninsula" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River. The river appears in the Ebro Treaty of 226 BCE between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in Appian , uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, Polybius states that the "native name" is Ibēr , apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin -os or -us termination. The early range of these natives, which geographers and historians place from

4256-469: The Hellenistic Mediterranean between 264 and 146 BC, and in its later books includes eyewitness accounts of the sack of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC, and the Roman annexation of mainland Greece after the Achaean War . While Polybius's Histories covers the period from 264 BC to 146 BC, it mainly focuses on the years 221 BC to 146 BC, detailing Rome's rise to supremacy in the Mediterranean by overcoming their geopolitical rivals: Carthage, Macedonia, and

4368-400: The Hispano-Roman population took place, ( muwalladum or Muladí ). After a long process, spurred on in the 9th and 10th centuries, the majority of the population in Al-Andalus eventually converted to Islam. The Muslims were referred to by the generic name Moors . The Muslim population was divided per ethnicity (Arabs, Berbers, Muladí), and the supremacy of Arabs over the rest of group

4480-474: The Iberian Peninsula reorientated towards the North away from the Muslim World. During the Middle Ages, the monarchs of Castile and León, from Alfonso V and Alfonso VI (crowned Hispaniae Imperator ) to Alfonso X and Alfonso XI tended to embrace an imperial ideal based on a dual Christian and Jewish ideology. Despite the hegemonic ambitions of its rulers and the consolidation of the union of Castile and León after 1230, it should be pointed that, except for

4592-410: The Islamic army landed at Gibraltar and, in an eight-year campaign, occupied all except the northern kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania . Al-Andalus ( Arabic : الإندلس , tr. al-ʾAndalūs , possibly "Land of the Vandals"), is the Arabic name given to Muslim Iberia. The Muslim conquerors were Arabs and Berbers ; following the conquest, conversion and arabization of

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4704-416: The Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. Together with the presence of Phoenician and Greek epigraphy, several paleohispanic scripts developed in the Iberian Peninsula along the 1st millennium BCE. The development of a primordial paleohispanic script antecessor to the rest of paleohispanic scripts (originally supposed to be a non-redundant semi-syllabary ) derived from

4816-557: The Mediterranean during Classical Antiquity having no match until the Industrial Revolution . In addition to mineral extraction (of which the region was the leading supplier in the early Roman world, with production of the likes of gold, silver, copper, lead, and cinnabar ), Hispania also produced manufactured goods ( sigillata pottery, colourless glass , linen garments) fish and fish sauce ( garum ), dry crops (such as wheat and, more importantly, esparto ), olive oil , and wine . The process of Romanization spurred on throughout

4928-431: The Neanderthal Châtelperronian cultural period began. Emanating from Southern France , this culture extended into the north of the peninsula. It continued to exist until around 30,000 BP, when Neanderthal man faced extinction. About 40,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula from across the Pyrenees. On the Iberian Peninsula, modern humans developed a series of different cultures, such as

5040-504: The P/Q hypothesis, other researchers see the Brittonic languages and Gaulish as forming part of a subgroup of the Celtic languages that is known as P-Celtic . Under this hypothesis, Continental languages are P-Celtic except for Celtiberian and Gallaecian, which are Q-Celtic. The Continental Celtic languages have had a definite influence on all of the Romance languages . Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( IPA : / aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə n / ), also known as Iberia ,

5152-432: The Seleucid empire. Books I-II are The Histories ' introduction, describing events in Italy and Greece before 221/0 BC, including the First Punic War , Rome's wars with the Gauls, the rise of the Achaean League (Polybius's own constitution), and the re-establishment of Macedonian power in Greece under Antigonus III Doson and Philip V of Macedon . Books III-XXXIX describe in detail political and military affairs in

5264-437: The Strait", and was caught in a complex geopolitical struggle ("a kaleidoscope of alliances") with multiple powers vying for dominance of the Western Mediterranean, complicated by the unstable relations of Muslim Granada with the Marinid Sultanate . The conflict reached a climax in the 1340 Battle of Río Salado , when, this time in alliance with Granada, the Marinid Sultan (and Caliph pretender) Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman made

5376-431: The Suebi kingdom and its capital city, Bracara (modern day Braga ), in 584–585. They would also occupy the province of the Byzantine Empire (552–624) of Spania in the south of the peninsula . However, Balearic Islands remained in Byzantine hands until Umayyad conquest, which began in 703 CE and was completed in 902 CE. In 711, a Muslim army conquered the Visigothic Kingdom in Hispania . Under Tariq ibn Ziyad ,

5488-491: The Western Mediterranean, with a presence in Mediterranean islands such as the Balearics , Sicily and Sardinia , and even conquering Naples in the mid-15th century. Genoese merchants invested heavily in the Iberian commercial enterprise with Lisbon becoming, according to Virgínia Rau , the "great centre of Genoese trade" in the early 14th century. The Portuguese would later detach their trade to some extent from Genoese influence. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada , neighbouring

5600-420: The aftermath of the conquest increased mining extractive processes in the southwest of the peninsula (which required a massive number of forced laborers, initially from Hispania and latter also from the Gallic borderlands and other locations of the Mediterranean), bringing in a far-reaching environmental outcome vis-à-vis long-term global pollution records, with levels of atmospheric pollution from mining across

5712-469: The culture of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar . During the Early Bronze Age, southeastern Iberia saw the emergence of important settlements, a development that has compelled some archeologists to propose that these settlements indicate the advent of state-level social structures. From this centre, bronze metalworking technology spread to other cultures like the Bronze of Levante , South-Western Iberian Bronze and Las Cogotas . Preceded by

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5824-407: The delineation of Iberia from Gaul ( Keltikē ) by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") from there. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the consolidation of Romance languages , the word "Iberia" continued the Roman word Hiberia and the Greek word Ἰβηρία . The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from

5936-421: The destruction of Carthage, Polybius likely journeyed along the Atlantic coast of Africa, as well as Spain. After the destruction of Corinth in the same year, Polybius returned to Greece, making use of his Roman connections to lighten the conditions there. Polybius was charged with the difficult task of organizing the new form of government in the Greek cities, and in this office he gained great recognition. In

6048-442: The early fifth century, Germanic peoples occupied the peninsula, namely the Suebi , the Vandals ( Silingi and Hasdingi ) and their allies, the Alans . Only the kingdom of the Suebi ( Quadi and Marcomanni ) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths , who occupied all of the Iberian Peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually occupied

6160-553: The feebleness of the taifa principalities, Ferdinand I of León seized Lamego and Viseu (1057–1058) and Coimbra (1064) away from the Taifa of Badajoz (at times at war with the Taifa of Seville ); Meanwhile, in the same year Coimbra was conquered, in the Northeastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, the Kingdom of Aragon took Barbastro from the Hudid Taifa of Lérida as part of an international expedition sanctioned by Pope Alexander II. Most critically, Alfonso VI of León-Castile conquered Toledo and its wider taifa in 1085, in what it

6272-440: The first Roman troops occupied the Iberian Peninsula, known to them as Hispania . After 197, the territories of the peninsula most accustomed to external contact and with the most urban tradition (the Mediterranean Coast and the Guadalquivir Valley) were divided by Romans into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior . Local rebellions were quelled, with a 195 Roman campaign under Cato the Elder ravaging hotspots of resistance in

6384-399: The first century BC. The peninsula was also the battleground of civil wars between rulers of the Roman republic; such as the Sertorian War , and the conflict between Caesar and Pompey later in the century. During their 600-year occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, the Romans introduced the Latin language that influenced many of the languages that exist today in the Iberian peninsula. In

6496-444: The former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior for 'near' and 'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three Roman provinces : Hispania Baetica , Hispania Tarraconensis , and Hispania Lusitania . Strabo says that the Romans use Hispania and Iberia synonymously, distinguishing between the near northern and the far southern provinces. (The name Iberia

6608-400: The framers of the United States Constitution . The leading expert on Polybius for nearly a century was F. W. Walbank (1909–2008), who published studies related to him for 50 years, including a long commentary of his Histories and a biography. Polybius was a close friend and mentor to Scipio Africanus the Younger , and had a lasting influence on his decision-making and life. Polybius

6720-404: The group called Continental Celtic is paraphyletic ; the term refers simply to non-Insular Celtic languages and not to any special linguistic relationship between them as a group other than they are Celtic. Since little material has been preserved of any of the Continental Celtic languages, historical linguistic analysis based on the comparative method is difficult to perform. Meanwhile, under

6832-458: The historical narrative: Polybius held that historians should, if possible, only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of factual integrity in historical writing. In the twelfth volume of his Histories , Polybius defines the historian's job as the analysis of documentation, the review of relevant geographical information, and political experience. In Polybius's time,

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6944-411: The inhabitants of the territory with the environment. By the Iron Age , starting in the 8th century BCE, the Iberian Peninsula consisted of complex agrarian and urban civilizations, either Pre-Celtic or Celtic (such as the Celtiberians , Gallaeci , Astures , Celtici , Lusitanians and others), the cultures of the Iberians in the eastern and southern zones and the cultures of the Aquitanian in

7056-427: The larger hilltop settlements, and the elite using violence in practical and ideological terms to clamp down on the population. Ecological degradation, landscape opening, fires, pastoralism, and maybe tree cutting for mining have been suggested as reasons for the collapse. The culture of the motillas developed an early system of groundwater supply plants (the so-called motillas ) in the upper Guadiana basin (in

7168-478: The largest slave centre in Western Europe) since the mid 15th century, with Seville becoming another key hub for the slave trade. Following the advance in the conquest of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, the seizure of Málaga entailed the addition of another notable slave centre for the Crown of Castile. Polybius Polybius ( / p ə ˈ l ɪ b i ə s / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Πολύβιος , Polýbios ; c.  200  – c.  118 BC )

7280-429: The last Marinid attempt to set up a power base in the Iberian Peninsula. The lasting consequences of the resounding Muslim defeat to an alliance of Castile and Portugal with naval support from Aragon and Genoa ensured Christian supremacy over the Iberian Peninsula and the preeminence of Christian fleets in the Western Mediterranean. The 1348–1350 bubonic plague devastated large parts of the Iberian Peninsula, leading to

7392-498: The later books of The Histories was preserved in Byzantine anthologies. His works reappeared in the West first in Renaissance Florence . Polybius gained a following in Italy, and although poor Latin translations hampered proper scholarship on his works, they contributed to the city's historical and political discourse. Niccolò Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy evinces familiarity with Polybius. Vernacular translations in French, German, Italian and English first appeared during

7504-462: The leading Mediterranean states, including affairs in ancient Rome and ancient Carthage , ancient Greece and ancient Macedonia , and the Seleucid empire and Egypt, explaining their increasing " συμπλοκή" (symplokē) or interconnectedness and how they each contributed to Rome's rise to dominance. Only books I-V survive in full; the rest are in varying states of fragmentation. Three discursive books on politics, historiography and geography break up

7616-428: The machines Archimedes created for the defense of Syracuse against the Romans, where Polybius praises the 'old man' and his engineering in the highest terms, and an analysis of the usefulness of astronomy to generals (both in the Histories ). Polybius was considered a poor stylist by Dionysius of Halicarnassus , writing of Polybius's history that "no one has the endurance to reach [its] end". Nevertheless, clearly he

7728-557: The manner in which Polybius used his sources, particularly documentary evidence as well as his citation and quotation of sources. Furthermore, there is some admiration of Polybius's meditation on the nature of historiography in Book 12. His work belongs, therefore, amongst the greatest productions of ancient historical writing. The writer of the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1937) praises him for his "earnest devotion to truth" and his systematic pursuit of causation. It has long been acknowledged that Polybius's writings are prone to

7840-401: The meanings of the words, including Iber, must also remain unknown. In modern Basque , the word ibar means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ibai means "river", but there is no proof connecting the names with Ebro or Iberia . The word Iberia comes from the Latin word Hiberia originating from the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία ( Ibēríā ), used by Greek geographers under

7952-453: The mediterranean slave trade, with Barcelona (already in the 14th century), Valencia (particularly in the 15th century) and, to a lesser extent, Palma de Mallorca (since the 13th century), becoming dynamic centres in this regard, involving chiefly eastern and Muslim peoples. Castile engaged later in this economic activity, rather by adhering to the incipient atlantic slave trade involving sub-saharan people thrusted by Portugal (Lisbon being

8064-595: The most important teachers of constitutional theory. Since the Age of Enlightenment , Polybius has in general held appeal to those interested in Hellenistic Greece and early Republican Rome, while his political and military writings have lost influence in academia. More recently, thorough work on the Greek text of Polybius, and his historical technique, has increased the academic understanding and appreciation of him as

8176-433: The narrative of the historical events, Polybius also included three books of digressions. Book 34 was entirely devoted to questions of geography and included some trenchant criticisms of Eratosthenes , whom he accused of passing on popular preconceptions or laodogmatika . Book 12 was a disquisition on the writing of history, citing extensive passages of lost historians, such as Callisthenes and Theopompus . Most influential

8288-561: The northeastern Ebro Valley and beyond. The threat to Roman interests posed by Celtiberians and Lusitanians in uncontrolled territories lingered in. Further wars of indigenous resistance, such as the Celtiberian Wars and the Lusitanian War , were fought in the 2nd century. Urban growth took place, and population progressively moved from hillforts to the plains. An example of the interaction of slaving and ecocide ,

8400-513: The peninsula in 1146. Somewhat straying from the trend taking place in other locations of the Latin West since the 10th century, the period comprising the 11th and 13th centuries was not one of weakening monarchical power in the Christian kingdoms. The relatively novel concept of "frontier" (Sp: frontera ), already reported in Aragon by the second half of the 11th century become widespread in

8512-777: The peninsula's first civilizations and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic , Middle East and North Africa . Around 2800 – 2700 BCE, the Beaker culture , which produced the Maritime Bell Beaker , probably originated in the vibrant copper-using communities of the Tagus estuary and spread from there to many parts of western Europe. The Bronze Age began on the Iberian Peninsula in 2100 cal. BC according to radiocarbon datings of several key sites. Bronze Age cultures developed beginning c.  1800 BCE, when

8624-533: The peninsula, possibly as early as the 5th millennium BCE. These people may have had some relation to the subsequent development of the Iberian civilization . As is the case for most of the rest of Southern Europe, the principal ancestral origin of modern Iberians are Early European Farmers who arrived during the Neolithic. The large predominance of Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b, common throughout Western Europe ,

8736-746: The period between 264 BC to 220 BC, including, for instance, treaty documents between Rome and Carthage in the First Punic War , the history of the Greek historian Phylarchus , and the Memoirs of the Achaean politician, Aratus of Sicyon . When addressing events after 220 BC, he continued to examine treaty documents, the writings of Greek and Roman historians and statesmen, eye-witness accounts and Macedonian court informants to acquire credible sources of information, although rarely did he name his sources (see, exceptionally, Theopompus ). Polybius wrote several works, most of which are lost. His earliest work

8848-464: The political and military affairs of Megalopolis, gaining experience as a statesman . In his early years, he accompanied his father while travelling as ambassador . He developed an interest in horse riding and hunting, diversions that later commended him to his Roman captors. In 182 BC, he was given the honour of carrying the funeral urn of Philopoemen , one of the most eminent Achaean politicians of his generation. In either 170 BC or 169 BC, Polybius

8960-457: The present southern Spain to the present southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed " Iberian ". Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence near the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown,

9072-419: The profession of a historian required political experience (which aided in differentiating between fact and fiction) and familiarity with the geography surrounding one's subject matter to supply an accurate version of events. Polybius himself exemplified these principles as he was well travelled and possessed political and military experience. He consulted and used written sources providing essential material for

9184-726: The public at large. Printings of his work in the vernacular remained few in number—seven in French, five in English ( John Dryden provided an enthusiastic preface to Sir Henry Sheers' edition of 1693) and five in Italian. Polybius's political analysis has influenced republican thinkers from Cicero to Charles de Montesquieu to the Founding Fathers of the United States . John Adams , for example, considered him one of

9296-573: The remaining taifas. The Almoravids in the Iberian peninsula progressively relaxed strict observance of their faith, and treated both Jews and Mozarabs harshly, facing uprisings across the peninsula, initially in the Western part. The Almohads , another North-African Muslim sect of Masmuda Berber origin who had previously undermined the Almoravid rule south of the Strait of Gibraltar, first entered

9408-440: The role of Fortune in the affairs of nations, how a leader might weather bravely these changes of fortune with dignity, the educational value of history and how it should demonstrate cause and effect (or apodeiktike ) to provide lessons for statesmen, and that historians should be "men of action" to gain appropriate experience so as to understand how political and military affairs are likely to pan out ( pragmatikoi ). Polybius

9520-516: The rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single geographical entity or a distinct population; the same name was used for the Kingdom of Iberia , natively known as Kartli in the Caucasus , the core region of what would later become the Kingdom of Georgia . It was Strabo who first reported

9632-463: The southern meseta ) in a context of extreme aridification in the area in the wake of the 4.2-kiloyear climatic event , which roughly coincided with the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age. Increased precipitation and recovery of the water table from about 1800 BC onward should have led to the forsaking of the motillas (which may have flooded) and the redefinition of the relation of

9744-684: The species Homo erectus , Homo heidelbergensis , or a new species called Homo antecessor . Around 200,000 BP , during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. Around 70,000 BP, during the Middle Paleolithic period, the last glacial event began and the Neanderthal Mousterian culture was established. Around 37,000 BP, during the Upper Paleolithic ,

9856-497: The square, a letter could be deduced. In The Histories , Polybius specifies how this cypher could be used in fire signals, where long-range messages could be sent by means of torches raised and lowered to signify the column and row of each letter. This was a great leap forward from previous fire signaling, which could send prearranged codes only (such as, 'if we light the fire, it means that the enemy has arrived'). Other writings of scientific interest include detailed discussions of

9968-404: The square, the final "5,5" code point encodes the spaces in between words. Alternatively, it can denote the end of a sentence or paragraph when writing in continuous script. Five numbers are then aligned on the outside top of the square, and five numbers on the left side of the square vertically. Usually these numbers were arranged 1 through 5. By cross-referencing the two numbers along the grid of

10080-474: The succeeding years, Polybius resided in Rome , completing his historical work while occasionally undertaking long journeys through the Mediterranean countries in the furtherance of his history, in particular with the aim of obtaining firsthand knowledge of historical sites. He apparently interviewed veterans to clarify details of the events he was recording and was similarly given access to archival material. Little

10192-562: The terms 'Spanish Peninsula' or 'Pyrenaean Peninsula'. The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited by members of the Homo genus for at least 1.2 million years as remains found in the sites in the Atapuerca Mountains demonstrate. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina , where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and one million years ago, were found in 1994. Experts have debated whether these skeletons belong to

10304-457: The time of the late Roman Republic called the entire peninsula Hispania . In Greek and Roman antiquity, the name Hesperia was used for both the Italian and Iberian Peninsula; in the latter case Hesperia Ultima (referring to its position in the far west) appears as form of disambiguation from the former among Roman writers. Also since Roman antiquity, Jews gave the name Sepharad to the peninsula. As they became politically interested in

10416-554: The view of Jaime Vicens Vives , "the most powerful state in Europe". Abd-ar-Rahman III also managed to expand the clout of Al-Andalus across the Strait of Gibraltar, waging war, as well as his successor, against the Fatimid Empire . Between the 8th and 12th centuries, Al-Andalus enjoyed a notable urban vitality, both in terms of the growth of the preexisting cities as well as in terms of founding of new ones: Córdoba reached

10528-553: The western portion of the Pyrenees. As early as the 12th century BCE, the Phoenicians , a thalassocratic civilization originally from the Eastern Mediterranean, began to explore the coastline of the peninsula, interacting with the metal-rich communities in the southwest of the peninsula (contemporarily known as the semi-mythical Tartessos ). Around 1100 BCE, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz ). Phoenicians established

10640-489: The western province of al-Andalus was marginalised and ultimately became politically autonomous as independent emirate in 756, ruled by one of the last surviving Umayyad royals, Abd al-Rahman I . Al-Andalus became a center of culture and learning, especially during the Caliphate of Córdoba . The Caliphate reached the height of its power under the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III and his successor al-Hakam II , becoming then, in

10752-678: The words was because of an overlapping in political and geographic perspectives. The Latin word Hiberia , similar to the Greek Iberia , literally translates to "land of the Hiberians". This word was derived from the river Hiberus (now called Ebro or Ebre). Hiber (Iberian) was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro. The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet Ennius in 200 BCE. Virgil wrote impacatos (H)iberos ("restless Iberi") in his Georgics . Roman geographers and other prose writers from

10864-494: The writings of Pseudo-Lucian may have some grounding in fact when they state, "[Polybius] fell from his horse while riding up from the country, fell ill as a result and died at the age of eighty-two". The Histories is a universal history which describes and explains the rise of the Roman Republic as a global power in the ancient Mediterranean world . The work documents in detail political and military affairs across

10976-418: Was Book 6, which describes Roman political, military, and moral institutions, which he considered key to Rome's success; it presented Rome as having a mixed constitution in which monarchical , aristocratic and popular elements existed in stable equilibrium. This enabled Rome to escape, for the time being, the cycle of eternal revolutions ( anacyclosis ) faced by those with singular constitutions (i.e. many of

11088-550: Was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period . He is noted for his work The Histories , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 BC, recording in detail events in Italy, Iberia, Greece, Macedonia, Syria, Egypt and Africa, and documented the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars among many others. Polybius's Histories

11200-401: Was a biography of the Greek statesman Philopoemen ; this work was later used as a source by Plutarch when composing his Parallel Lives ; however, the original Polybian text is lost. In addition, Polybius wrote an extensive treatise entitled Tactics , which may have detailed Roman and Greek military tactics . Small parts of this work may survive in his major Histories , but the work itself

11312-794: Was a recurrent causal for strife, rivalry and hatred, particularly between Arabs and Berbers. Arab elites could be further divided in the Yemenites (first wave) and the Syrians (second wave). Christians and Jews were allowed to live as part of a stratified society under the dhimmah system , although Jews became very important in certain fields. Some Christians migrated to the Northern Christian kingdoms, while those who stayed in Al-Andalus progressively arabised and became known as musta'arab ( mozarabs ). The slave population comprised

11424-600: Was ambiguous, being also the name of the Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus.) Whatever languages may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the Vascones , which was preserved as a language isolate by the barrier of the Pyrenees. The modern phrase "Iberian Peninsula" was coined by the French geographer Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent on his 1823 work "Guide du Voyageur en Espagne" . Prior to that date, geographers had used

11536-430: Was among the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination and criticism of tradition. He narrated his history based upon first-hand knowledge. The Histories capture the varied elements of the story of human behavior: nationalism , xenophobia , duplicitous politics, war, brutality, loyalty, valour, intelligence, reason and resourcefulness. Aside from

11648-644: Was among the members of the Scipionic Circle . When Scipio defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War , Polybius remained his counsellor. The Achaean hostages were released in 150 BC, and Polybius was granted leave to return home, but the next year he went on campaign with Scipio Aemilianus to Africa, and was present at the Sack of Carthage in 146, which he later described. Following

11760-635: Was born around 198 BC in Megalopolis , Arcadia , when it was an active member of the Achaean League . The town was revived, along with other Achaean states, a century before he was born. Polybius's father, Lycortas , was a prominent, land-owning politician and member of the governing class who became strategos (commanding general) of the Achaean League. Consequently, Polybius was able to observe first hand during his first 30 years

11872-645: Was chronicling Roman history for a Greek audience, to justify what he believed to be the inevitability of Roman rule. Nonetheless, Green considers Polybius's Histories the best source for the era they cover. For Ronald Mellor , Polybius was a loyal partisan of Scipio , intent on vilifying his patron's opponents. Adrian Goldsworthy , while using Polybius as a source for Scipio's generalship, notes Polybius's underlying and overt bias in Scipio's favour. H. Ormerod considers that Polybius cannot be regarded as an 'altogether unprejudiced witness' in relation to his bêtes noires ;

11984-466: Was detained there for 17 years. In Rome, by virtue of his high culture, Polybius was admitted to the most distinguished houses, in particular to that of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus , the conqueror in the Third Macedonian War , who entrusted Polybius with the education of his sons, Fabius and Scipio Aemilianus (who had been adopted by the eldest son of Scipio Africanus ). Polybius remained on cordial terms with his former pupil Scipio Aemilianus and

12096-478: Was elected hipparchus (cavalry officer) and was due to assist Rome militarily during the Third Macedonian War , although this never came about. This office was the second highest position of the Achaean League and often presaged election to the annual strategia (chief generalship). Polybius's political career was cut short in 168 BC, however; as a consequence of the final defeat of the Antigonid kingdom in

12208-553: Was seen as a critical event at the time, entailing also a huge territorial expansion, advancing from the Sistema Central to La Mancha . In 1086, following the siege of Zaragoza by Alfonso VI of León-Castile, the Almoravids , religious zealots originally from the deserts of the Maghreb, landed in the Iberian Peninsula, and, having inflicted a serious defeat to Alfonso VI at the battle of Zalaca , began to seize control of

12320-512: Was subsumed in a period of upheaval and civil war (the Fitna of al-Andalus ) and collapsed in the early 11th century, spawning a series of ephemeral statelets, the taifas . Until the mid 11th century, most of the territorial expansion southwards of the Kingdom of Asturias/León was carried out through a policy of agricultural colonization rather than through military operations; then, profiting from

12432-429: Was widely read by Romans and Greeks alike. He is quoted extensively by Strabo writing in the 1st century BC and Athenaeus in the 3rd century AD. His emphasis on explaining causes of events, rather than just recounting events, influenced the historian Sempronius Asellio . Polybius is mentioned by Cicero and mined for information by Diodorus , Livy , Plutarch and Arrian . Much of the text that survives today from

12544-434: Was writing in Greek, and would have implemented his cipher square in the Greek alphabet. Both versions are shown here. In the Polybius square, letters of the alphabet were arranged left to right, top to bottom in a 5 × 5 square. When used with the 26-letter Latin alphabet two letters, usually I and J, are combined. When used with the Greek alphabet, which has exactly one fewer letters than there are spaces (or code points) in

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