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HISTORIAN

Polybius

208 BC - 126 BC

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Icon of person Polybius

Polybius (; Greek: Πολύβιος, Polýbios; c. 200 – c. 118 BC) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work The Histories, a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 BC, recording in detail events in Italy, Iberia, Greece, Macedonia, Syria, Egypt and Africa, and documented the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars among many others. Polybius's Histories is important not only for being the only Hellenistic historical work to survive in any substantial form, but also for its analysis of constitutional change and the mixed constitution. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Polybius has received more than 1,689,392 page views. His biography is available in 68 different languages on Wikipedia. Polybius is the 9th most popular historian, the 40th most popular biography from Greece (down from 35th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Greek Historian.

Polybius is most famous for his book The Histories, which is a description of the rise of Rome from the end of the Second Punic War to the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War.

Memorability Metrics

  • 1.7M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 75.67

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 68

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 11.44

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.19

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Polybiuses by language


Among HISTORIANS

Among historians, Polybius ranks 9 out of 339Before him are Thucydides, Xenophon, Tacitus, Livy, Sima Qian, and Josephus. After him are Suetonius, Alexis de Tocqueville, Diodorus Siculus, Thomas Kuhn, Manetho, and Hecataeus of Miletus.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 208 BC, Polybius ranks 1After him are Emperor Kaika and Agatharchides. Among people deceased in 126 BC, Polybius ranks 1

Others Born in 208 BC

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Others Deceased in 126 BC

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In Greece

Among people born in Greece, Polybius ranks 40 out of 936Before him are Cleisthenes (-565), Gorgias (-483), Ptolemy I Soter (-367), Pyrrhus of Epirus (-318), Solon (-638), and Myron (-500). After him are Aristarchus of Samos (-311), Muhammad Ali of Egypt (1769), Leucippus (-500), Alcibiades (-450), Peisistratos (-600), and Draco (-650).

Among HISTORIANS In Greece

Among historians born in Greece, Polybius ranks 3Before him are Thucydides (-460) and Xenophon (-430). After him are Callisthenes (-360), Theopompus (-400), Quintus Curtius Rufus (41), Afet İnan (1908), Krste Misirkov (1874), Philochorus (-340), Michael Glykas (1125), Leo Allatius (1586), and Marsyas of Pella (-400).