The Act Of Commanding Armies Analysis

There is no doubt that Western History is filled with brutal wars and combats. Blood was spilled and men were killed in order to bring their nation to victory. These fights could not be avoided for it was in their nature to expand the territory of their empire and seek for more power. Many leaders were able to skillfully direct their armies to triumph. But as victorious as they were, no one can deny the fact that there were as many battles lost as there were won. According to a Greek Historian names Polybius, these losses are attributed to the carelessness of the leaders when it came to planning their strategy of attack. In book IX of his work, The Histories, he states in “The Art of Commanding Armies” that there is a high chance that these leaders were not able to thoroughly think of all the factors that may have affected their conquest.
Coming from his personal experiences with, , knowledge about war and study of past Roman combats, he is able to compose well though of methods and ideas for commanding armies that, he guarantees, will work. He wrote in as an attempt help future leaders by giving rational, and systematic ways on how to govern and conduct battles, and in doing so, increase the size of Rome’s territory. Through this text one is able to collect details on how their life was during the period of this book. It is seen that combat and war was part of their nature and that history was being used to learn from the mistakes of previous leaders and rulers. Although there have been many questions on the biasness of Polybius, it was one of his beliefs that a historian has a task of delivering the truth in history. Thus, he wrote to give the truth to his readers despite the consequences this may give him. He found that writing with bias completely goes against what the purpose of history is, to reveal the truth about the