ἱστορίαι Historiai
Plb. 8.35 The Histories, Polybius; served verbatim
For the present Hannibal, after completing the palisade unmolested, was content to remain quiet, as his plan had succeeded to his wish; for he had shut in the enemy and compelled them to remain inside their wall, in terror for the safety of the citadel as well as for their own; while he had raised the courage of the citizens of Tarentum to such an extent, that they now imagined themselves to be a match for the Romans, even without the Carthaginians. A little later he made at a short distance from the palisade, in the direction of the town, a trench parallel to the palisade and the wall of the citadel; and the earth dug out from it having been piled up on the other side along the edge nearest the town, he erected another palisade on the top, thus making a fortification no less secure than the wall itself. Once more, at a moderate distance, nearer the city, he commenced building a wall, starting from the street called Soteira up to that called Batheia; so that, even without a garrison, the Tarentines were adequately protected by the mere constructions themselves. Then leaving a sufficient garrison, and enough cavalry to serve on outpost duty for the protection of the wall, he encamped along the bank of the river which is called by some the Galaesus, but by most people the Eurotas, after the river which flows past Sparta. The Tarentines have many such derived names, both in town and country, from the acknowledged fact of their being a colony from Sparta and connected by blood with the Lacedaemonians. As the wall quickly approached completion, owing to the activity and zeal of the Tarentines, and the vigorous co-operation of the Carthaginians, Hannibal next conceived the idea of taking the citadel also.

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

← Plb. 8.34 contents Plb. 8.36 →

Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass

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)