Although not all historians shared Polybius’ more rigorous standards, his work provides special opportunity to explore these questions because he raises them so frequently in his writing.69 Polybius’ invective against the rhetorical historian Timaeus70 provides an example of the standards by which historians might be judged by their peers. To be sure, Polybius’ peer review of Timaeus seems hardly objective itself; he impugns his motives,71 even while opining that Timaeus warrants such harsh treatment because he has been harsh with others.72 Fornara rightly questions the fairness of Polybius’ critique; he polemicized “against Timaeus, by our standards an indefatigable and enterprising scholar,” because the latter merely collected books rather than traveled.73 We know that some writers (note here Lucian) could use hyperbole as part of their wit in satirizing “bad” historians; though bias may have been more acceptable, hence more pervasive, in antiquity than it is today, it was probably not commonly as severe or malicious as accusers (and perhaps competitors) like Polybius suggest. (However harsh some modern reviewers may be, modern scholars may be grateful that we did not write two millennia ago.)
Nevertheless, Polybius’ critique illustrates the demands for accuracy to which ancient historians could be subjected, and the public consequences of leaving oneself open to the critique of having failed to achieve such accuracy.74 Polybius complains that Timaeus’ work reveals that he was unacquainted with Africa, about which he writes.75 Timaeus’s errors are hardly surprising, Polybius opines, since he failed to do sufficient investigation,76 and even when he did visit places and consult witnesses, he got his facts wrong.77 When covering matters treated properly by other historians, Timaeus elaborates excessively and confuses the information that is there.78 Polybius accuses Timaeus of fabricating sources where he fails to name them.79 (This accusation is probably an unfair one, reflecting simply different approaches to style or different target audiences.)
As we have noted, Polybius is not above assuming that he can infer Timaeus’ motives. Timaeus’ problem, Polybius argues, is not ignorance but prejudice; Timaeus is more concerned with epideictic rhetoric (praise and blame) than with proper history.80 One could forgive historians who merely erred, Polybius allows, but Timaeus’ errors are deliberate lies.81 Polybius charges that Timaeus slanders people by presenting them in a worse light than is appropriate.82 This criticism may well unfairly impugn Timaeus’ motives for his perspective, and may simply inform us that Polybius evaluated the data differently; one could not easily avoid rivals’ criticisms. But from Polybius’ description it appears likely that Timaeus did at least exaggerate.
More broadly, Polybius condemns authors who sensationalize their story to make it more graphic and provide cohesiveness;83 Polybius himself might permit a little of this to tie the narrative together, but (he contends) he would not permit very much.84 He complains that another historian, Phylarchus, records tragic scenes of women, children, and the aged wailing as they are enslaved. Polybius objects to this portrayal (even though we can suspect that it is a historically likely inference) because it is meant to arouse pity, i.e., pathos used for entertainment value.85 The historian should not, Polybius opines, “try to thrill his readers” with exaggeration or tragic poetry endeavoring “to imagine the probable utterances of his characters.”86 A tragic poet should entertain and settle for verisimilitude, he contends, but a historian should stick with facts.87
On a more general level, however, these standards that Polybius cites are not exclusively his own, but are shared with Timaeus himself, however well or poorly he may live up to the standard in a given instance. Timaeus admits that falsehood is the worst vice in writing history, and that those who write falsehood should find a different name for their book than history.88 Timaeus would also agree with Polybius that the truth of a book’s content, rather than its style or length, confirms that a work is history.89
Likewise, Polybius has to defend himself in advance against others’ criticisms. He feels compelled to explain why he himself depends on Aratus rather than the often contradictory accounts of his contemporary Phylarchus.90 He contends that the latter “makes many random and careless statements,”91 and promises to offer just the most relevant examples.92
Historians of the early empire continued to maintain such standards as the ideal; Tacitus declares that history should cater to leaders neither by flattering nor by attacking them.93 Although political pressure might require some adjustments for current monarchs or dynasties (or even influence the selection process by which historians survived, published, and their works remained extant), this pressure did not permit wholesale invention of facts (nor ought we to imagine the Gospel writers constrained by such political pressures from their protagonists!). Historians who invented events (far more than sensational or rhetorical historians embellishing relevant details; see our next chapter) risked refutation and serious denunciation, and their works were unlikely to survive their patrons.94
