Kitap 9
9
I have not said this for the sake of making a panegyric on either the Romans or Carthaginians, whose great qualities I have already remarked upon more than once: but for the sake of those who are in office among the one or the other people, or who are in future times to direct the affairs of any state whatever; that by the memory, or actual contemplation, of exploits such as these they may be inspired with emulation. For in an adventurous and hazardous policy it often turns out that audacity was the truest safety and the finest sagacity;There is some word wanting in the text here which has been variously supplied. I have ventured to conjecture τὰ γὰρ δοκοῦντα παράβολον κ.τ.λ., and to translate accordingly: for it is the boldness and apparent rashness of Hannibal’s movement that Polybius seems to wish to commend. and success or failure does not affect the credit and excellence of the original design, so long as the measures taken are the result of deliberate thought. . . .
9
When the Romans were besieging Tarentum, Bomilcar theThe Carthaginian fleet invited from Sicily to relieve Tarentum does more harm than good, and departs to the joy of the people, B. C. 211. Livy, 26, 20. admiral of the Carthaginian fleet came to its relief with a very large force; and being unable to afford efficient aid to those in the town, owing to the strict blockade maintained by the Romans, without meaning to do so he used up more than he brought; and so after having been constrained by entreaties and large promises to come, he was afterwards forced at the earnest supplication of the people to depart. . . .
10
A city is not really adorned by what is brought from without, but by the virtue of its own inhabitants. . . .
