There is currently no institutional online access for this book. You may find an alternative format on our academic bookstore.
Polybius is one of the most remarkable ancient historians, excelling as source, theorist and writer. Book 8 shows many sides of this extraordinary author: the superb narrator, recounting the tragic end of the potentate Achaeus and Hannibal's diverting capture of Tarentum with the aid of wild boar; the technical writer on Archimedes' sensational machines for destroying Roman ships; the zestful polemicist, railing against Theopompus' diatribe on the friends of Philip II; the thinker about history and the interconnection of world…