Book 19
THE only fragment we possess of the nineteenth book of Polybius is a statement quoted by Plutarch as to M. Porcius Cato, to the effect that by his orders the walls of all the numerous Spanish cities north of the Baetis were dismantled on the same day. Cato was in Spain B. C. 195. The means taken by him to secure this simultaneous destruction of fortifications are told by Frontinus, Strateg, 1, 1, 1.
We thus lose the history of the years B. C. 195, 194, 193; as well as the greater part of that of B. C. 192, 191, contained in the early part of book 20, of which only a few fragments remain. Livy, however, has evidently translated from Polybius in his history of these years, and a brief abstract of events in Greece may help the reader in following the fragmentary book which follows with more interest.
