The Wars in Italy, Greece, and Asia Become Interlaced
These transactions were contemporaneous with Hannibal's expedition against
Saguntum, after his conquest of all
Iberia south of the Iber. Now, had the first attempts of
Hannibal been from the beginning involved with the transactions in
Greece, it would have been plainly my proper course
to have narrated the latter side by side with those in
Iberia in
my previous book, with an eye solely to dates. But seeing
that the wars in
Italy,
Greece, and
Asia were at their commencements entirely distinct, and yet became finally involved
with each other, I decided that my history of them must also
be distinct, until I came to the point at which they became
inseparably interlaced, and began to tend towards a common
conclusion. Thus both will be made clear,—the account of their
several commencements: and the time, manner, and causes
which led to the complication and amalgamation, of which I
spoke in my introduction. This point having been reached,
I must thenceforth embrace them all in one uninterrupted
narrative. This amalgamation began towards the end of the
war, in the third year of the 140th Olympiad. From that year,
therefore, my history will, with a due regard to
dates, become a general one.
Before that
year it must be divided into distinct narratives, with a mere
recapitulation in each case of the events detailed in the preceding book, introduced for the sake of
facilitating the comprehension, and rousing the admiration, of my readers.
