Polybius always maintains that the study of documents is only one, and not the most important, element in the equipment of an historian. The best is personal experience and personal inquiry. [Sidenote: Personal knowledge.] Of the sources of his own history, then, the first and best may be set down as knowledge acquired by being actually present at great events, such as the destruction of Carthage and the sack of Corinth; visits to the Roman army in camp; assisting at actual debates in his own country; personal knowledge of and service under men of the first position in Achaia; personal visits to famous localities; voyages and tours undertaken for the definite object of inspection and inquiry; and, lastly, seeing and questioning the survivors of great battles, or the men who had played a leading part in conspicuous political transactions. From his earliest youth Polybius had enjoyed some special advantages in these respects. As he himself says, “the events in Greece fell within his own generation, or that immediately preceding his own,—and he therefore could relate what he had seen, or what he had heard from eye-witnesses” (4, 2). And of the later period he “was not only an eye witness, but in some cases an actor, and in others the chief actor” (3, 4). When he was probably under twenty we hear of his being present at an important interview between Philopoemen and Archon;[72] and his election as hipparch in B.C. 169, soon after he reached the legal age, was in consequence of his having thrown himself with vigour into the practical working of the cavalry under Philopoemen. In regard to Roman history and polity, we have Cicero’s testimony that he was _bonus auctor in primis_,[73] and more particularly in regard to chronology, _quo nemo fuit in exquirendis temporibus diligentius_.[74] Nor is this praise undeserved, as is shown by his energy in pushing minute and personal inquiries. Thus he learnt the details of the Hannibalic war from some of the survivors of those actually engaged; visited the localities, and made the pass of the Alps used by Hannibal;[75] studied and transcribed the stele or bronze tablet placed by Hannibal on the Lacinian promontory;[76] travelled through Libya, Spain, Gaul, and the seas which washed their shores (perhaps even as far as Britain), in order to give a true account of them.[77] Conversed with Massanissa on the character of the Carthaginians, as well as with many of the Carthaginians themselves.[78] Carefully observed Carthagena.[79] Inspected the records at Rhodes,[80] and the Archives at Rome;[81] and studied and transcribed the treaties preserved there.[82] Visited Sardis,[83] Alexandria,[84] and Locri Epizephyrii.[85] To this, which is by no means an exhaustive account of his travels and inquiries, may be added the fact that his intimacy with the younger Africanus, grandson by adoption and nephew by marriage of the elder Scipio, must have placed at his disposal a considerable mass of information