SOURCE: "Polybius, Syracuse, and the Politics of Accommodation," in Greek and Byzantine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3, Autumn, 1985, pp. 265-82.

In the following excerpt, Eckstein discusses Polybius's attitude towards the political hegemony exercised by Rome, arguing that the historian "was a political realist from beginning to end."

Polybius' intended audience was made up of political men; his avowed purpose was to prepare such men for political action in the real world; his theme was the expansion of Roman power. Despite the simplicity of these basic principles of the Histories, there remains considerable disagreement about Polybius' attitude towards Rome. This is the result partly of the fragmentary nature of the extant text, partly of the obscurity of some of Polybius' own remarks. There is particular debate over whether Polybius' view of Rome gradually became more accommodating over time. Walbank strongly favors this hypothesis, while others (Musti, Shimron) have recently asserted that...