ἱστορίαι Historiai
Plb. 32.25 The Histories, Polybius; served verbatim
After reigning for a short time in Cappadocia in utter contempt of the customs of his country, Orophernes introduced the organised debaucheries of Ionia.... It has happened to not a few, from the desire for increasing their wealth, to lose their life along with their money. It was from being captivated by such passions that Orophernes, king of Cappadocia, perished and was expelled from his kingdom. But having briefly narrated the restoration of this king (Ariarathes), I will now bring back my narrative to its regular course; for at present I have, to the exclusion of Greek affairs, selected from those of Asia the events connected with Cappadocia out of their proper order, because it was impossible to separate the voyage of Ariarathes from Italy from his restoration to his kingdom. I will therefore now go back to the history of Greece during this period, in which a peculiar and extraordinary affair took place in regard to the city of Oropus, of which I will give the whole story from beginning to end, going both backward and forward in point of time, that I may not render the history of an episode which was made up of separate events, and was not on the whole important, still more insignificant and indistinct by relating it under different years. For when an event as a whole does not appear to readers to be worth attention, I cannot certainly expect a student to follow its details scattered at intervals through my history.... For the most part when things go well men generally get on together; but in times of failure, in their annoyance at events, they become sore and irritable with their friends. And this is what happened to Orophernes, when his affairs began to take a wrong turn in his relations with Theotimus,—both indulging in mutual recriminations....

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

← Plb. 32.24 contents Plb. 32.26 →

The Histories, Polybius — translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, 1889
Apparatus shelf — Polybius, The Histories (Evelyn S. Shuckburgh translation; Musaicum ebook) · Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, The Histories of Polybius, 2 vols (Macmillan, 1889); Musaicum Books ebook, 2018
license: public-domain (US: the translation is pre-1890 by the epub's own front matter — its preface opens 'This is the first English translation of the complete works of Polybius', carries the dedication 'TO F. M. S.', and cites nothing later than the 1880s; identified as Shuckburgh 1889, this lane's bibliographic judgment, since the ebook nowhere names its translator; the Musaicum 2018 packaging is not extracted and not served)