1Polybius’ work, according to the preserved fragments of the author, narrates the history of the Roman conquest from the beginning of the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) to the submission of Macedonia in the Third Roman-Macedonian War (171-168 BC). Polybius takes the second war between Rome and Carthage as the starting point of his history because of the simultaneity of this event with two other major conflicts: the dispute between Antiochus III and Ptolemy IV Philopator in the Fourth Syrian War (219-217 BC) and the war of the Greek Leagues (Achaean, Aetolian and Boeotian), which relied on the unceasing participation of Philip of Macedonia (220-217 BC).

2The Syrian Wars were a series of six wars between the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, successor states to Alexander the Great’s empire, during the iii and ii centuries BC over the region then called Coele-Syria, one of the few avenues into Egypt. These conflicts drained the material and manpower of both parties and led to their eventual destruction and conquest by Rome and Parthia.

3As to the Greek Leagues, in 220 BC, the Achaean League entered into a war against the Aetolian League. The young king Philip V of Macedon sided with the Achaeans and called for a Panhellenic conference in Corinth, where the Aetolian aggression was condemned. The Aetolians emerged as a dominant state in central Greece and expanded by the voluntary annexation of several Greek city-states to the League. The League was, at that moment, a Greek ally of the Roman Republic, siding with the Romans during the First Macedonian War (215-205 BC), and helping to defeat Philip V at the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, during the Second Macedonian War (200-196 BC). The First Macedonian War was brought about by the approximation between Philip V and Hannibal, the Carthaginian general. The Roman Republic opposed both the Macedonian expansion and the Punic-Macedonian alliance.

4Up to that point, according to Polybius, the events of the various parts of the world had only local influence. Therefore, they were scattered and disconnected; at the time of the Second Punic War, at the end of the iii century BC, however, Italian and African affairs became directly related to Greek and Asian ones. History had become an organic whole (somatoeidès). Polybius writes:

– “Previously the doings of the world had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of initiative, results, or locality; but ever since this date history has been an organic whole (somatoeidè), and the affairs of Italy and Libya have been interlinked (sumplekesthai) with those of Greece and Asia, all leading up to one end (telos). And this is my reason for beginning their systematic history from that date. For it was owing to their defeat of the Carthaginians in the Hannibalic War that the Romans, feeling that the chief and most essential step in their scheme of universal aggression had now been taken, were first emboldened to reach out their hands to grasp the rest and to cross with an army to Greece and the continent of Asia” (Pol. 1.3.3-6)².

– “For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune (tuchè) has guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them to incline towards one and the same end (skopon). A historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose” (Pol. 1.4.1-2).

5The meanings of the terms somatoeidès and symplokè will be examined as unifiers of temporality in the construction of the idea of organicity and universal history in the Polybian method, as well as the meanings of the terms telos and skopos as temporal markers in the future-oriented perception of historical time.

6R. Koselleck’s proposal turns to be the approach of Historical Times (the specific differential of each present engendered by the uninterrupted tension between spaces of experience and horizons of expectation) on the linguistic front, through his History of Concepts (Begriffsgeschichte): the semantics of historical concepts which investigates the linguistic constitution of time experiences in past realities. This semantic approach does not imply a purely historical-linguistic interest or merely a search for the various historical meanings of terms. History of Concepts aims to apprehend the human experience expressed in language. The meta-historical categories defined by Koselleck revert to a suitable instrument for the analysis and explanation of the dimension of human action:

– “Historical time, if the concept has a specific meaning, is bound up with social and political actions, with concretely acting and suffering human beings and their institutions and organizations. All these actions have definite, internalized forms of conduct, each with a peculiar temporal rhythm”³.

– “Essa concepção hermenêutica de significação do tempo histórico que conecta passado, presente e futuro em uma relação em constante mutação, além de sugerir que a verdade dos fatos históricos é linguisticamente situada, também aponta para uma dinâmica das expressões linguísticas que é dependente dos acontecimentos concretos. Ou seja, os acontecimentos concretos – guerras, alianças, cataclismos, pestes, etc. – são experimentados pelos indivíduos de tal forma que estes redefinem suas próprias concepções linguísticas sobre esta mesma experiência. (Jasmin, 2005; Koselleck, 1992) Essa é a relação entre discurso e ação que Koselleck coloca no centro de seu método de investigação histórica”⁴.

7In this way, interpenetration between History of Concepts and Social History is revealed. This interpenetration takes place on several levels. In fact, investigations of the uses and meanings of sociopolitical concepts bring to light the conflicts, tensions, appeasement, continuities, changes and future projections contained in a given historical situation. The semantic approach, therefore, opens new perspectives for the study of social and intellectual history, providing clues of the relations between social groups through the investigation of the semantic struggles in this domain. On the extraction of historical meanings from the temporalization, Koselleck states “every historical event contains temporal qualities in its execution and in its reception: duration, periodicity, and acceleration”⁵.

8We consider the pairs of terms somatoeidès/symplokè and telos/skopos function, in Polybius’ work, as concepts that relate dialectically to the broader socio-political processes by crystallizing temporal tensions of that given present. We believe those terms underwent modifications in their meanings and contents in the passage from the iii to the ii century BC, just as occurred with the concepts of revolution and history throughout the xviii and xix centuries AD, according to Koselleck’s analysis (2004). It is in this way, and through these concepts, that we can ascertain the temporal perspective that shapes the Polybian historiographical method. At the beginning of Book 1, Polybius clarifies the choice of his timeframe (Pol. 1.1.5-6):

“For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity (politeia) the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government – a thing unique in history? Or who again is there so passionately devoted to other spectacles or studies as to regard anything as of greater moment than the acquisition of this knowledge?”

9In two other passages from his work, Polybius demarcates the period of the Roman conquest, reaffirming his significant novelty in terms of the apprehension of temporality:

– “I have already indicated the general scope and limits of this history. The particular events comprised in it begin with the above-mentioned wars [the Hannibalic War] and culminate and end in the destruction of the Macedonian monarchy. Between the beginning and end lies a space of fifty-three years, comprising a greater number of grave and momentous events than any period of equal length in the past” (Pol. 3.1.9-11).

– “I have, I am sure, made evident in numerous passages and chiefly in the prefatory remarks dealing with the fundamental principles of this history, where I said that the best and most valuable result I aim at is that readers of my work may gain a knowledge how it was and by virtue of what peculiar political institutions that in less than fifty-three years nearly the whole world was overcome and fell under the single dominion of Rome, a thing the like of which had never happened before” (Pol. 6.2.3).

10Rome took then 53 years to conquer the oikoumenè. The period that includes the events between 220 and 168 BC, from the Second Punic War to the surrender of Perseus, has a new temporal quality: a greater moment, a thing unique in history, a greater number of grave and momentous events than any period of equal length in the past, a thing the like of which had never happened before. And the supporter of this change was the Roman Constitution: peculiar political institutions.

11F. Walbank, K. Sacks and F. Hartog have discussed the relations between the meanings of the terms symplokè and somatoeidès in Polybius, both referring to the universalizing tendency of the historical process:

“The central notion he [Polybius] called to his aid was that of sumploke. Evoking the art of weaving, the word means, in the first place, the action of intertwining the warp and the weft. Among the atomists such as Leucipus and Democritus, it expresses the necessary conjunction of the first elements. Taken up by the Stoics, the notion expresses the necessary sequence of natural events as humans, finally the form of Destiny or of Providence. Applied to history, the notion held that before 220, what happened in the world had a ‘disseminated’ (sporadas) character, for ‘there was no more unity of conception and of execution than unity of place’. After 220, by contrast, history started to shape itself ‘as an organic whole’ (somatoeide) and events, like a textile, to ‘interweave’ [sumplekesthai] one with another”⁶.

12The passage 1.3.3-6 is quoted by several modern authors precisely because of the connection they have perceived between the terms somatoeidè and sumplekesthai, a derivative of sumplokè, in the analysis of the new temporality opened by the Roman domain started in 220 AD. Hartog states:

“The road to Rome was for Polybius, one might say, his road to Damascus. There he saw universal history and believed that Rome was its instrument, for there was certainly a renewal of the times, an innovation of Fortune, that can be dated to the 220s when the Second Punic War started: ‘the affairs of Italy and of Libya have been interwoven (sumplekesthai) with those of Greece and of Asia, all leading up to one end’”⁷.

13Hartog follows Sacks on this point, who did a detailed study of the relations between those terms in Polybius in his book entitled Polybius on the Writing of History, published in 1981. From Sacks’ analysis, the following passage is relevant to retain:

“[...] as he [Polybius] began recognizing the unity imposed on history by fortune (i 4), the method of exposing that unity, the sumploke, became increasingly identified with the unity itself, the somatoeides. Consequently, the somatoeides quality and the sumploke are both found in his discussion of 220”⁸.

14For the historian Polybius, who lived between 200 and 118 BC, and whose work remains the chief source on the Roman history of this period, the interval between 220 and 168 BC inaugurated a new perception of temporality in Greek historiography. His method of writing history demarcates and records the depth of this change. That is to say, the unfolding of events in this interval of time has allowed this historian to witness a change in the representation of historical time. This new perception of temporality affected his own method of writing history. R. Robertson and D. Inglis have analyzed this aspect of history writing in Greek and Roman authors, especially in Polybius:

“We will first examine how certain Greek intellectuals from the fourth century BC onwards developed new ways of thinking about the nature of the ‘world as a whole’, ideas that were later taken on by their Roman counterparts. Most importantly, a novel type of historiography was developed that was intended to be able to grasp the increasingly interconnected nature of the whole world. We will then move on to consider how contemporary thinkers understood the Roman Empire as an entity that was ‘worldwide’ in scope. We will consider here how Roman imperial conditions were seen to have revolutionized travel and geographical movement across the face of the earth. Finally, we will consider how the city of Rome itself was often thought to be a truly ‘world-city’, in that it drew to it people from all parts of the world and contained within it goods and other phenomena from every conceivable region of the earth. We will conclude by arguing that the existence of the Greek and Roman ‘global animus’ illustrates that forms of global consciousness and ‘globality’ are not developments solely confined to modernity, as has often been thought”⁹.

15Polybius’ work records, therefore, the emergence of a new historical time, in the sense of Koselleck, and of a new regime of historicity, in the sense of Hartog. In this process of mutation of temporality that finds its way through the lexicon and the linguistic field, Hartog notes that, at the moment of his effort of conceptualization, Polybius wrote history in the singular, and that

“Whereas before dispersed actions (pragmata) had been produced, at that moment there was one unique history (that which was unfolding) which happened to be also the one that Polybius was in the process of writing. The same word [somatoeide], at this point, came to designate history both as an event and as a narration”¹⁰.

16As for the phenomenon of the singularization of history in Polybius, Sacks had already pointed out the character of unity of somatoeidès:

“Polybius believes that history itself became somatoeides and that it is the historian’s responsibility to reflect this new unity in a universal history. It was, of course, easier to say that after a certain point all history moved in one direction than it was for the historian to present the material in such a fashion”¹¹.

17Unlike most historiographical methods of previous Greek historians, whose timeframe was provided above all by the past-present orientation, the Polybian method was provided substantially by the present-future orientation. In terms of historical knowledge, in the first case, the present is drawn more strongly by experience (past) than by expectation (future); in the second, the expectation has more attraction on the present.

18Here, the relations between historical time and historical knowledge are formulated in the hypothesis that “o conhecimento histórico só se renova, uma ‘nova história’ só aparece, quando se realiza uma mudança significativa na representação do tempo histórico”¹². And the changes in the representation of historical time are brought about by the mutations in the movement of events. It is these mutations that lead to changes in the relations that a given present establishes with its past and future, given that the temporalization is apprehended by the tension between these two temporal dimensions, since past and future necessarily refer to each other¹³. With these relationships changed, a new representation of historical time can emerge.

19In the passage from the iii century to the ii century BC, when Polybius saw Roman expansionism and imperialism, mutations in the movement of events are indicated by the greater connectivity and interdependence of warlike and politico-social events, by the globalizing tendency of their repercussions, by the speed of the changes caused, by the dependence on a center and by the expectation created in relation to the futurity, the result of an acceleration toward the future.

20The way in which Polybius conceived his writing of history, his historiographical method, is directly related to his perception of the international connections unleashed by the succession of those political and warlike events and their unstoppable social reflexes in the known world. This new historical process in progress provided the perception of a new temporality, of a new regime of historicity, strongly impelling Polybius to the need of political experience and to the creation of the autopsy method for the conception of his Pragmatikè Historia. His negative criticism of previous historians in Book 12 is marked by the apprehension of this new mutation of temporality, crystallized in the lexicon of his work and method. Signalized by what he called organic whole (somatoeidès), a totalizing and future-oriented reality (telos, skopos), expressed in general by the emergence of the Roman power in the Mediterranean Basin, those mutations, recorded in the linguistic field, allowed Polybius the revival and renewal of the idea of ​​a universal history (ta katholou). This perception could not have arisen in Timaeus’ time with such seriousness and thrust.

21In the perception of Polybius, therefore, from 220 AD on, history becomes an organic whole turning its face to the future much more than to the past, all leading up to one and the same end, revealing a present arousing much more expectation than experience: since fate has guided the events of the world to one and the same end, how will the world be under Roman rule? What will become of the Greeks and of Greece in this world? Those are the fundamental historical questions for Polybius, in addition to explaining the greatness and effectiveness of the Roman Constitution (politeia). In another passage, Polybius says (Pol. 1.4.2-10):

“[…] and secondarily the fact that none of my contemporaries have undertaken to write a general history (ton katholou pragmaton suntaxis), in which case I should have been much less eager to take this in hand. As it is, I observe that while several modern writers deal with particular wars and certain matters connected with them, no one, as far as I am aware, has even attempted to inquire critically when and whence the general and comprehensive scheme of events originated and how it led up to the end. I therefore thought it quite necessary not to leave unnoticed or allow to pass into oblivion this the finest and most beneficent of the performances of Fortune. For though she is ever producing something new and ever playing a part in the lives of men, she has not in a single instance ever accomplished such a work, ever achieved such a triumph, as in our own times. We can no more hope to perceive this from histories dealing with particular events than to get at once a notion of the form of the whole world, its disposition and order, by visiting, each in turn, the most famous cities, or indeed by looking at separate plans of each: a result by no means likely. He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace. For could anyone put the creature together on the spot, restoring its form and the comeliness of life, and then show it to the same man, I think he would quickly avow that he was formerly very far away from the truth and more like one in a dream. For we can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never knowledge or exact opinion. Special histories therefore contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its truth. It is only indeed by study of the interconnexion of all the particulars, their resemblances and differences, that we are enabled at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure from history”.

22In this Polybian temporal perspective, local and private histories lose their importance, since they lack the capacity to explain what is urgent from the end of the iii century BC: the new present, qualified by the emergence of the universal empire, by the organicity of events increasingly more connected and interdependent and by the expectation it engages in the horizon of this fracture of temporality. Two passages of his work show this perception. In one of them, Polybius says (8.2):

“I consider that a statement I often made at the outset of this work thus receives confirmation from actual facts, I mean my assertion that it is impossible to get from writers who deal with particular episodes a general view of the whole process of history. For how by the bare reading of events in Sicily or in Spain can we hope to learn and understand either the magnitude of the occurrences or the thing of greatest moment, what means and what form of government Fortune has employed to accomplish the most surprising feat she has performed in our times, that is, to bring all the known parts of the world under one rule and dominion, a thing absolutely without precedent? For how the Romans took Syracuse and how they occupied Spain may possibly be learnt from the perusal of such particular histories; but how they attained to universal empire and what particular circumstances obstructed their grand design, or again how and at what time circumstances contributed to its execution is difficult to discern without a general history”.

23As Sacks summarizes Polybius’ viewpoint, “the universal [historiographical] form can reveal the structure of the unity of the oikoumene, whereas the monographic form cannot”¹⁴.

24The strength and speed of the events that made the Roman advance towards universal supremacy had enhanced the connection of this present with the coming to be, with the future and with what was expected of it: domination or submission of whom? Survival or destruction of whom? Freedom or bondage to whom? What is the best constitution for a state? All these inquiries had just been put before by several authors, but not at such a universalizing level.

25In contrast, both the weight and importance of the remote past and those of the local past are lessened. It is no accident that for Polybius the importance of history is now to know by what means and under what constitutional system (politeia) the Romans, in less than 53 years, have managed to subject almost all the inhabited world to their government, a unique fact in history. It does not matter any and all experience, but only those that explain the process described previously.

26The importance of the past is altered since Polybian method, the so-called pragmatic history, has as its primary and conscious objective to provide political and military lessons for a world in universal war facing a future now universally expected. This pedagogical function of history peculiar to many Greek historians was described by Cicero as historia magistra uitae, which, by exempla, would have lessons to teach. Curiously, in his work De Oratore, Cicero did not include among the masters of eloquence the great Greek historian of Rome whom he “treats with respect as a model in his letter to Lucceius, and as a historical source in De Re Publica”¹⁵.

27From Polybian point of view, Timaeus, Theopompus, and Callisthenes are questionable, reprehensible, if not false and liars. Their histories, unable to explain the organic whole and to be pragmatic, become useless. They are also despised by Polybius for, not rarely, speaking of a less important or irrelevant past, as well as being of no use in explaining the unique end to which history henceforth drags the contemporaries of Polybius.

28Therefore, for Polybius, any written work that does not contribute to explain the present emergence of the empire and its inexorable flow towards the future loses its historical value. Particular and local histories, a History of Sicily or a History of Italy, like those Timaeus had written, no longer correspond to the notion of history conceived by Polybius. For this reason, they can be underestimated (Pol. 12.23.7):

“The fact, in my opinion, is that Timaeus was sure that if Timoleon, who had sought fame in a mere tea-cup, as it were, Sicily, could be shown to be worthy of comparison with the most illustrious heroes, he himself, who treated only of Italy and Sicily, could claim comparison with writers whose works dealt with the whole world and with universal history”.

29In a passage from Book 12, Polybius synthesizes once again the fundamental parts of his method: political experience, autopsy or personal knowledge of the regions studied, and the study and critique of written sources (12.25e):

“In the Same fashion systematic history (pragmatikes historias) too consists of three parts, the first being the industrious study of memoirs and other documents and comparison of their contents, the second the survey of cities, places, rivers, lakes, and in general all the peculiar features of land and sea and the distances of one place from another, and the third being the review of political events”.

30For Polybius, the experience of a statesman who requires participation in political and military affairs, experience that provides the presence in the regions and events of which he wants to narrate, would be the fundamental attribute for anyone who wants to write history (pragmatikè historia). This particular Polybian claim is in agreement with his theme: a political and military narrative of events, a narrative that wants to leave for posterity the Roman superiority and role within the societies of the Mediterranean world in the iii and ii centuries BC as well as the historical universality that role presupposes¹⁶.

31The essential technique of Polybian method is therefore the autopsy. Political experience is a means by which it would be more easily attained. Pragmatic History has some similarities with what was conventionally called, at some point in the xx century, History of the Present. Pragmatic History has as object of study a theme that unfolds during the historian’s own life or close to it, because autopsy implies that he is limited to writing about the period that his living memory can reach. As a result, it will always tend to the idea of ​​an “unfinished history”, which E. Hobsbawm and H. Rousso point out as the main feature of History of the Present¹⁷.

32As for the study and criticism of written sources, although Polybius recognizes in them some importance (Pol. 12.25e), they play a very small role in his method, if not unnecessary. The most remote past, and therefore written sources, and the particularized past have less importance for the Polybian method precisely because of the new temporal perspective on which he bases his writing of history: the universal present time tending to the futurity which is the temporal cleavage of the somatoeidès metaphor, the corporeal substance of the sense of time for Polybius.

33Although Polybius warns (3.1.4-5) that his object of study – the subjection of the oikumenè to the Roman domain – should be viewed as a single whole, with a recognized beginning (220 BC), a fixed duration, and an end which is not a matter of dispute (168 BC), he feels the need to go further in his narrative (3.4.5-9):

“I must append to the history of the above period an account of the subsequent policy of the conquerors and their method of universal rule, as well as of the various opinions and appreciations of their rulers entertained by the subjects, and finally I must describe what were the prevailing and dominant tendencies and ambitions of the various peoples in their private and public life. For it is evident that contemporaries will thus be able to see clearly whether the Roman rule is acceptable or the reverse, and future generations whether their government should be considered to have been worthy of praise and admiration or rather of blame. And indeed it is just in this that the chief usefulness of this work for the present and the future will lie”.

34That’s the meaning of telos and skopos in his work: not only the usefulness of his work as exempla for the present and future, but also the appreciation of what is still unfinished, the future public judgment of the conquerors and conquered as worthy of praise or guilt. Not only because history is seen as magistra uitae, but above all because the recent experience of the Roman rule attracts inexorably the future. That universal present in increasing discontinuity with the past establishes a universal dependence on its anticipated future:

– “For neither rulers themselves nor their critics should regard the end of action as being merely conquest and the subjection of all to their rule” (Pol. 3.4.9-10);

– “So the final end achieved by this work will be, to gain knowledge of what was the condition of each people after all had been crushed and had come under the dominion of Rome, until the disturbed and troubled time that afterwards ensued” (Pol. 3.4.12-13).

35The conquests and the empire implied in this change of temporal perspective. Many regions of the past have lost their importance because they cannot explain the new universal condition between dominators and dominated; previous projects are abandoned and there is a need to propose new waits¹⁸.

36Polybius’s Book 12 establishes an acute controversy with the historian Timaeus (350-260 BC) when referring to the questions: what is the craft of the historian in the centuries that witnessed the fall of the power of the Greek poleis and the advance of the universal Roman power? Timaeus’ method of writing history had been much criticized by Polybius. For the historian of Megalopolis, the historian of Tauromenium did not practice autopsy (Pol. 12.27-28) or personal knowledge of the studied regions (12.3-4) and had no political experience (12.25f-g), neglecting the most important part of the writing of history (the investigation). Finally, he had over-reliance on written sources (12.25e). Polybius argued that “all the library research in the world cannot make up for a lack of personal experience in seeing places and witnessing events”¹⁹.

37If Timaeus was part of Polybius’ space of experience, Polybius could only write what he wrote about Timaeus under the aura of a specific horizon of expectation: that of the one who, at the imminence of a dominated and dependent Greek world, preferred to tell the history of the glittering political constitution and the warlike glories of a people who welcomed him and for whom he foresaw the domination of the whole world known under the foresight of an instigating and overwhelming movement of universalization. In this context, the future (and the writing of history) belonged to men of action, not to those of library like Timaeus; it belonged to the front men, not to those seated in Athens.

38The arguments put forward here in favor of the revelation of a new historical time in the work of Polybius may add something to the analysis of F. Hartog regarding the general temporal orientation of the ancient or pre-revolutionary historiography, all of them considered by him as past-oriented. For the author, in pre-modern regimes of historicity:

“[...] o impulso para o futuro e para a vida era regulado fortemente pelo passado. O futuro devia se inspirar nos gestos dos heróis, nos grandes eventos, nos costumes e regras trazidas pela tradição. Era uma percepção do tempo histórico ‘passadista’: o presente devia se dirigir ao futuro preservando e prolongando o passado. Não deveria haver uma ruptura entre o ‘espaço de experiencia’ e o ‘horizonte de expectativa’: ‘quanto maior a experiência, mais prudente e menos aberta é a expectativa’. [...] Esses regimes de historicidade pré-modernos, por mais diferentes que fossem suas representações temporais, tinham em comum esse princípio ‘passadista’: o passado é o mestre do presente-futuro²⁰.

39In the Polybian work, the disputes between Rome and Carthage and the consequent venture of the Roman imperialism around the Mediterranean basin inaugurate a new temporality, establish a new regime of historicity. Polybius is the observer of this change and his translator for the historiographical language.

40He breaks with the historiographical tradition of local alterity of Herodotus and Thucydides (and other historians) and inaugurates the universal multiplicity (if one wants to emphasize the simultaneity of the conflicts) or the universal oneness (if one wants to emphasize the growing Roman dominion) toward a unified future in the writing of history. The Polybian work can be well described as the result of the perception of a gap between past and future, a concept coined by H. Arendt:

“Whereby it would be of some relevance to notice that the appeal to thought arose in the odd in-between period which sometimes inserts itself into historical time when not only the later historians but the actors and witnesses, the living themselves, become aware of an interval in time which is altogether determined by things that are no longer and by things that are not yet. In history, these intervals have shown more than once that they may contain the moment of truth”²¹.

41In fact, the experience of time in the Historias was dislocated. If they, on the one hand, are still past-oriented (in which the past laid down the law), whose best definition is bequeathed by the historia magistra uitae, on the other hand, they simultaneously express an attraction for expectation, a growing universality of imperialism, an unequaled thrust of the Roman Constitution in the Mediterranean waters, an imminent Roman domination. This trace of expectation runs through the Polybian work. In his narrative, the power of attraction governed by the totalizing and universalizing promise of the Imperium overrides the local and partial experiences. The future came to have a greater power of explanation/revelation to the present than the past. The past, in large measure, is rejected because it contains bad examples (e.g. Timaeus). The future, as unifying and threatening, converges into a topos more attractive, instructive and alive than the examples from the past. Finally, the work of Polybius concentrates more on the potential of the future than on the ability to learn from the past.