Livy made reference to and utilizes Polybius' The Histories

Livy made reference to and utilizes Polybius' The Histories as source material in his own narrative. Polybius 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 the narrative of the historical events Polybius chose to examine, he 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 was Book 6 which describes the military and political organization of Rome; it presented Rome as a state in which monarchical elements, aristocratic elements, and popular elements were in a stable equilibrium. This enabled Rome to escape the cycle of eternal revolutions (anacyclosis). While Polybius was not the first to promote this ideal; it was his account which provided the most vivid, cogent illustration of this ideal for later political theorists.


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