THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 267

commercii in order to trade in Italy, 31. 12. 7 is not 'analogous' to 43. 13. 6,
the Parthini (43. 21. 3) were probably not given to Pleuratus in 196 (see my
note on 33. 34. 11), and socii navales (44. 29. 2) is Livy's regular phrase for
ships' crews, even when they were not 'allies' of the state in whose navy they
were serving: see Walsh's note on 21. 49. 8.
University of Manchester JOHN BRISCOE

LIVY AND POLYBIUS

HERMANN TRANKLE: Livius und Polybios. Pp. 254. Basel-Stuttgart:
Schwabe, 1977. Cloth, 60 Sw. frs.
Trankle's review of McDonald's text of books 31—5 (Gnomon 1967), his article
on the development of Livy's style {Wiener Studien, 1968) and his monograph
on Livy's use of the elder Cato (Abhandlungen of the Mainz Academy, 1971),
were themselves major contributions to Livian scholarship. The present book, a
penetrating and detailed study of the way Livy uses Polybius in the fourth and
fifth decades, and an application of the results of this study to the problem
of the extent of Livy's direct dependence on Polybius in the third decade, con-
stitutes the most important work on Livy to have appeared for many years.
Transcending the traditional division between historians who, following Nissen,
had been exclusively concerned with the factual discrepancies between Polybius
and Livy, and the philologists — in the German sense of Philologen — like Witte
and Burck — who were interested only in Livy's Kunst, Trankle analyses the
divergences between the two historians in relation both to matters of fact and to
changes made by Livy for literary reasons. The general theme apart, there is a
multitude of perceptive comments on individual passages including at least nine
new textual emendations.
It is impossible to do full justice to the wealth of material in a brief review
and I must restrict myself to a few main points. * Trankle identifies three different
ways in which Livy adapts Polybian material — abbreviation, expansion (including
the achievement of greater clarity by pinpointing essentials, the rearrangement
of material to make it more intelligible, and the elaboration of speeches), and
deliberate factual alterations. Under this last heading, he collects together the
changes which have often been regarded as having been made for 'patriotic reasons'
— particularly the removal of most of Polybius' imputations against Flamininus
and the toning down of Acilius Glabrio's brusque attitude to the Aetolians inl91.
Rather than seeing these simply as deliberate alterations by Livy, Trankle argues
that Livy found a different version in his annalistic predecessors and reconciled
the two by leaving out what was in one and not the other. Trankle labels this a
'procedure of subtraction' and holds that it was Livy's standard practice in the
case of a conflict between his authorities (e.g. he omits Polybius' mention of the
renewal of Flamininus' command at 18. 11. 1 because he had already described
it, from an annalistic source, at 32. 28. 9). Now earlier in the book Trankle has a
section on 'annalistic insertions' into Polybian material and argues that these are

1
I shall hope to comment elsewhere on Trankle's discussion of individual passages in books
34—7. For the moment I am happy to acknowledge the extent to which his treatment of
books 31—3 exposes the superficiality of many of my own comments.

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 268 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
relatively restricted in number — he lists only the" additions to the peace with
Philip in 33.30, the account of the dispatch of Cato to report on the battle of
Thermopylae in 36. 21. 5—11, and the eclipse of the moon in 44. 37. 5—9. But
he proceeds in the same section to discuss the passages where the Polybian
material has been altered to reconcile it with other material taken by Livy from
annalistic sources — as in the prelude to the Second Macedonian War in book 31,
the degree of freedom given to the ten commissioners appointed to administer
the peace with Philip in 196 (33. 24. 7 and 30.1) and the Rhodian embassies in
169 and 168 (44. 14. 5 ff. and 35. 4 ff.). Now I see no difference in principle
between these passages, where the annalistic material can be separately identified
in Livy, and those concerning Flamininus and Glabrio, where it can not. In both
cases Livy is making use of and, in different ways, combining the accounts of
Polybius and one or more annalists.
This point is of particular importance when we come to Trankle's discussion
of the third decade.2 He argues that the differences between Livy and the
surviving portions of Polybius' accounts of the siege of Syracuse, Hannibal's
capture of Tarentum, the first Macedonian War, and the African campaigns of
203 and 202 are on a considerably greater scale than in the fourth and fifth
decades and concludes that the similarities between Polybius and Livy are to be
explained not by Livy having read and combined Polybius and an annalist but
either by both Polybius and an annalist — doubtless Coelius Antipater — using
basically the same sources themselves, or, in the case of the first Macedonian
war, by Coelius himself having used Polybius.
I would concede that the number of discrepancies over relatively short passages
is greater than is the case in the fourth and fifth decades. But I cannot see that
the effect of the alterations is any greater than in the opening chapters of Book
31, and if Livy could combine Polybius and an annalist in the way he has done
there, I fail to see why the same hypothesis cannot be applied to the third
decade. Moreover the extent of the verbal parallels between Polybius and Livy —
at least as far as events in Greece and Africa are concerned — is, to my mind, too
great to be consistent with the possibility that the Polybian text reached Livy
only via Coelius, and, a fortiori, with the more extreme view that for Western
events Livy's source was Coelius and that the latter and Polybius themselves
used the same authority. The number of divergencies between Livy and Polybius,
in comparison with the fourth and fifth decades, is to be explained by the fact
that Livy had not yet fully appreciated Polybius' superiority; in the third decade
his narrative can be regarded as a synthesis of Polybius and the annalistic tradition:
later he merely 'retouches' (to use Trankle's own word) Polybius in the light of
the annalistic account.
Trankle has a justified admiration for Livy. His demonstration that some of
his alterations to Polybius produce a far more intelligible account — see especially
his analysis of their versions of Philip's seige of Abydos — is of particular value.
He rightly stresses that the famous 'howlers' are limited in number and, in
proportion to the scale of Livy's work, unimportant. He is, however, willing to
limit the number of discrepancies by assuming textual corruption. He thus
emends trium to duorum at 33. 33. 2, sex to septem at 37. 6. 4, occidentis to

2
Trankle limits himself to books 24—30 on the grounds that there is general agreement that
Livy did not use Polybius directly in books 21—3. On that issue I refrain from committing
myself.

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 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 269
orientis at 33. 17. 6, and posits a corruption in dextro at 33. 9. 6. One's attitude
to this approach is bound to be subjective, but my own feeling is that it is better
to accept the transmitted text and ascribe the error to Livy rather than to a scribe.
Trankle writes as a 'Philologe' and confesses that he may have missed some
relevant historical works. In one or two cases this is indeed the case, and he has
consequently been led astray. He argues that 37. 55. 7—56. 6, the nomination of
and detailed instructions to the commissioners for the settlement after Magnesia
are not an annalistic insertion, but that the corresponding passage was omitted
by the excerptor of Polybius. He is unaware that the general statements of
Polybius 21. 24. 7—8 = Livy 37. 55. 5—6 are inconsistent with the detailed
provisions of 37. 56. 1—6: Bikerman's article in REG 1937 is fundamental on
the issue. Again, Trankle's discussion of 39. 53. 3 fails to take account of Meloni's
strong arguments {Perseo, pp. 9 ff.) for thinking that Perseus was the legitimate
son of Philip and Polycrateia. And when he says that most modern scholars have
accepted Polybius' hostile view of Flamininus, he should have referred to the
dissenting view of Balsdon in Phoenix 1967.
University of Manchester JOHN BRISCOE

A PHILOSOPHER IN POLITICS
MIRIAM T. GRIFFIN: Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Pp. xxii + 504.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976. Cloth, £18.
For a philosopher Seneca was not a bad politician and for a politician he was a
tolerable philosopher. Despite theories such as Plato's the conjunction is, perhaps
fortunately, rare, and the possible interaction of the two ways of acting and
looking at the world have been much discussed by Seneca's admirers and
detractors from ancient times to the present. The discussion will not cease with
the publication of Mrs. Griffin's book but it has been put on a new footing by
her work which combines erudition with an exemplary methodological sound-
ness. Historical, philosophical, and literary techniques of analysis are all deployed
as appropriate, thus avoiding the tunnel vision which afflicts many studies of
this author.
The general aim of the work is to confront the works of moral instruction
with the life of the statesman. To this end an opening section gives a very full
examination to Seneca's political career, particularly during his years of power.
This is a painstaking effort at reconstruction which surpasses in detail and
penetration any previous biographical study. Given the tenuous nature of the
evidence the journey is perhaps more interesting than the results to be found at
the destination and a reader who (like the present reviewer) is not a card-carrying
prosopographer may suspect that occasionally the sum of several speculations
wrongly appears to be something rather than nothing. However conscientiously
the writer draws attention to the hypothetical nature of each individual state-
ment no reader of Tacitus will be surprised to find that a page such as 52, where
seven out of eight sentences contain a 'may have been' locution, has a cumulative
rhetorical, if not logical, effect. Healthy scepticism is, however, Mrs. Griffin's
hallmark, not credulity: e.g. pp. 68 ff., on Seneca's activities as Nero's 'minister';
pp. 176 ff., on the possibility of giving a systematic account of Seneca's philos-
ophy; pp. 427 ff. and 433 ff. on the sources of Dio's picture of Seneca and the

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