Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/415

 HISTORY. POLYBIUS 391 find the old rationalism of Herodorus revived in a quasi-historical shape by Euhemerus and his follower PAL.EPHATUS. They reduced myth and religion to common-sense by the principle that the so-called gods were all mortal men who had been worshipped after death by the superstition or gratitude of their fellow-creatures. Euhemerus had the great triumph of finding in Crete what he believed to be a tomb with the inscription, Zav Kpovov {' Zeus, son of Cronos'). And we find an inter- esting product of the international spirit of the time — the spirit which was to produce the Septuagint and the works of Philo — in the histories of Berosus, priest of Bel in Babylon, and Manetho, priest of Serapis in Alexandria. But the greatest of the later Greek historians is, without question, Polybius of Megalopolis (about 205- 123 B.C.). His father, Lycortas, was general of the Achaeans, and the first forty years of the historian's life were spent in military and diplomatic work for the league, especially in its resistance to Rome, In 166 he was sent to Rome as a hostage, and for sixteen years he was kept there, becoming a close friend of the Scipios. He followed the younger Africanus on most of his expeditions, and saw the fall of Numantia and of Carthage. In his last years he was the principal mediator between Rome and Greece, possessing the confidence of both sides, and combining in a singular degree the patriotism of the old Achaean cavalryman with a disinterested and thorough - going admiration for Rome. His history started from 264 B.C., where Timaeus ended, and led up to his own days in the first two books ; then it expanded into a universal history, giving the rise of Rome, step by step, down