Kitap 9
9
I have not said this for the sake of making a panegyric on either the Romans or Carthaginians, whose great qualities I have already remarked upon more than once: but for the sake of those who are in office among the one or the other people, or who are in future times to direct the affairs of any state whatever; that by the memory, or actual contemplation, of exploits such as these they may be inspired with emulation. For in an adventurous and hazardous policy it often turns out that audacity was the truest safety and the finest sagacity;There is some word wanting in the text here which has been variously supplied. I have ventured to conjecture τὰ γὰρ δοκοῦντα παράβολον κ.τ.λ., and to translate accordingly: for it is the boldness and apparent rashness of Hannibal’s movement that Polybius seems to wish to commend. and success or failure does not affect the credit and excellence of the original design, so long as the measures taken are the result of deliberate thought. . . .
