The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment.

In 182 BC he was given quite an honor when he was chosen to carry the funeral urn of Philopoemen one of the most eminent Achaean politicians of his generation. Five numbers were then aligned on the outside top of the square and five numbers on the left side of the square vertically. In Polybius' time the profession of a historian required political experience (which aided in differentiating between fact and fiction) and familiarity with the geography surrounding one's subject matter to supply an accurate version of events.

: /pəˈlɪbiəs/; c. Polybius's The Histories provides a detailed account of Rome's ascent to empire and included his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage in 146 BC. 200–118 BC) Greek Πολύβιος) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work The Histories which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail.