The Construction of the Sixth Book of Polybius

In 1943 one of the authors of this paper set out a case ¹ for the view that the sixth book of Polybius’ Histories contained two layers, written at different times, and indicating a change in the historian’s assessment of the achievements and merits of the Roman hegemony. The arguments there put forward met with some acceptance; ² but the recent burst of interest in the problems of the sixth book has shown that unanimity is still remote. Among scholars writing since 1943, ³ one, G. B. Cardona, ⁴ is a ‘separatist’ who accepts the views of De Sanctis; another, W. Theiler, ⁵ believes that three ‘layers’ of composition can be detected and isolated; three, E. Mioni, ⁶ H. Erbse, ⁷ and H. Ryffel, ⁸ are ‘unitarians’, but vary in the date they assign to the composition of the Histories; and K. Ziegler ⁹ in his R.E. article on Polybius argues for composition in the sixties followed by a revision and publication before 146.