Second, Polybius merits perusing for the complexity of his staggered examination of causation, most outstandingly for his accentuation on the requirement for investigators to figure out how to separate between an extraordinary power struggle's prophasis [πρόφασις], its straightforward guises or reasons, and its aitia [αἰτία], its a lot further basic causes. While looking for clarifications or relegating fault for such fear blazes, the political antiquarian should be clear-peered toward, trustworthy, and persevering chasing truth: dismissing miserly speculations, cautiously weighing contending clarifications, and jumping with audacious relish into the wandering intricacies of conciliatory history. It was this mix of moral fairness and good instinct that so charmed Polybius to simply war scholars, for example, Hugo Grotius, who, in the seventeenth century notably depicted him as the primary history specialist to lay out obvious qualifications between a noble reason for war and just a powerful contention. There is an intrinsically scientific quality to the investigation of causation, contends Polybius, with his regular work of the clinical representation — ordinary in Greek historiography since Herodotus — and his ideas that his work is similar to that of the faithful doctor:
For of what use to the debilitated is a doctor who is oblivious to the reasons for specific states of the body? Furthermore, of what use is a legislator who can't figure how, why and whence every occasion has started? The previous will hardly probably suggest appropriate treatment for the body while the last option, whenever denied of the expected information, will track down it difficult to manage conditions. Nothing, hence, ought to be all the more painstakingly made preparations for and more determinedly searched out than the principal reasons for every occasion, since issues of the best significance frequently start from trifles, and it is the underlying motivations and originations in each matter which are the most effortlessly helped.
He is typically gruff and acidic in his abhorrence for the scholastically trifling, complaining that if: history neglects to resolve questions regarding the reason why and how a given occasion occurred, and for what reason, and whether there was anything surprising about the result, what is left is an award exposition without instructive worth, something that gives momentary fulfillment, yet is of no assistance by any means for what's to come.
Once in a long while, be that as it may, does Polybius give one, straightforward, superseding clarification as he continued looking for understanding. All things considered, he focuses to various drivers, has a prominent inclination for unobtrusively striated understandings, and vigorously embraces intricacy. For instance: was the Subsequent Punic Conflict the consequence of Carthage's assault on Saguntum, a Spanish city united to Rome, or of its previous intersection of the Ebro? Was it, maybe, the drawn out result of Rome's own previous infringement of a ceasefire when it deftly — and wrongfully — held onto Sardinia and Corsica while Carthage was riven by the horrendous internal conflict of the Truceless Conflict? Or on the other hand was it basically the unavoidable consequence of antiquated abhorrences and Punic revanchism, embodied in the legend of Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca constraining his young child Hannibal to promise vindicate on Rome for his own losses during the Main Punic Conflict? Or on the other hand maybe, and more probable, was it a blend of all the abovementioned, for certain drivers more promptly strong and significant than others?
All through the Accounts, and particularly in Daedalean international circumstances, for example, these, Polybius will persistently introduce all contentions and clarifications and afterward weigh them together, not really inclining authoritatively in one heading, yet endeavoring to continuously introduce the most legitimate contending perspectives. No solid speculations or roughly stingy clarifications of structural disturbances in global governmental issues for this carefully prepared history specialist cum-legislator. Honestly, some advanced, more hedgehog-like scholastics in the field of safety studies might find this approach baffling and Polybius by and large excessively mentally vulpine for their preferences. Other, all the more generally disapproved, researchers of statecraft will almost certainly observe Polybius' way to deal with be both the really fulfilling and more intelligent of tact's vivid quality.