Polybius And Livy

Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps is one of history’s most remarkable military achievements even to this day. There are many accounts of the crossing of the Alps and what happened during those weeks and we can only speculate and use the sources and information that has lived through the decay of time. Our main primary sources that historians use to piece together the crossing of the Alps are by two of Rome’s most famous historians, Polybius and Livy. Polybius was a very rounded and mostly non-biased historian who got out of his way to travel to his locations to document facts and information which he used in his text and who lived during the time of the First and Second Punic Wars. On the other hand we have Livy who was a very pro-Roman historian who had documented his facts based on other historians who were before him as he lived almost 200 years after the Punic wars. When we compare the two accounts by both historians we tend to believe and rely more on the accounts made by Polybius as we know him as a reliable and fairly non-biased source whereas Livy was very biased
Polybius is known for his determination to get actual factual evidence and firsthand knowledge of events that occurred. He resided in Rome for most of his life and occasionally undertaking long journeys throughout the Mediterranean to get knowledge on historical sites and interview primary sources who were actually at the events. Polybius’s works (The Histories) documents the events between 264 and 146 BC which mainly involved the rise of the Roman Empire and the effort in which they went to subdue their rival Carthage. Polybius documents the First and Second Punic wars with incredible detail and is our main source for the wars, although Livy also provides some very important facts and