Polybius and the reasons for the Roman victory over the Hellenistic kingdoms: “The face of the Battle” in Antiquity

Abstract

The present work exposes in context, the reasons of the Roman victory over the weapons of the Hellenistic kingdoms in different wars, according to the proposals of Polybius. In these reasons, we will determine how important are the operational and logistic reasons about themselves and the great importance for the Romans and their capability of adaptation and flexibility, that are precisely the kind of analysis that proposes the English author John Keegan in his known book "The Face of Battle", aimed to explore other deeper aspects of the political-operational war story.