A key theme of The Histories is that the good statesman

A key theme of The Histories is that the good statesman is virtuous and composed. The character of the Polybian statesman exemplified in that of Philip II. His beliefs as to the character of a good statesman led Polybius to reject historian Theopompus' description of Philip's private, drunken debauchery. For Polybius it was inconceivable that such an able and effective statesman could have had an immoral and unrestrained private life as described by Theopompus.[1]
Other important themes running through The Histories are the role of Fortune in the affairs of nations, his insistence that history should be demonstratory, or apodeiktike, providing lessons for statesmen and that historians should be "men of action" (pragmatikoi).
Polybius is considered by some to be the successor of Thucydides in terms of objectivity and critical reasoning, and the forefather of scholarly, painstaking historical research in the modern scientific sense. According to this view, his work sets forth the course of history's occurrences with clearness, penetration, sound judgment, and among the circumstances affecting the outcomes, lays especial emphasis on the geographical conditions. Modern historians are especially impressed with the manner in which Polybius utilized his sources, and in particular documents, his citation and quotation of his sources. Furthermore there is some admiration of Polybius's meditation on the nature of historiography in Book 12. Polybius' work belongs, therefore, amongst the greatest productions of ancient historical writing. The writer of the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1937) praises him for his "earnest devotion to truth" and for his systematic pursuit of causation.


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