Book fragments
13
No darkness, no storm however violent, turned him from his purpose. He forced his way through all such obstacles; he overcame even disease by resolute labour, and never once failed in an object or experienced a variation in his uniform good fortune.
14
In old times single combats among the Romans were conducted with good faith [but in our days many contrivances have been hit upon].
15
The horse, from the agony of the wound, first fell forward, and then galloped furiously through the middle of the camp.
16
Seeing that the superstitious feelings of the soldiers were roused by these portents, he exerted himself to remove the scruples of the men by means of his own intelligence and strategic skill.
17
These vessels appear to be as swift sailers as penteconters, but to be much inferior to triremes; and their construction has been abandoned for many years past. Polybius, however, is supposed to lay down the measurements of such vessels, which the Romans and Carthaginians appear to have often employed in their wars with each other.From Zosimus, 5, 20, 7. See 1, 26.
18
Getting completely drunk, and all flung on the ground in the various tents, they neither heard any word of command nor took any thought of the future whatever.Some refer this to a circumstance narrated in Livy, 41, 2. But Hultsch points out that Livy is not using Polybius in that period.
19
In consultations of war, as in those relating to bodily sickness, one ought to take as much account of the symptoms that have since arisen as of those originally existing.
