The Achaeans' Ransom of Roman Captives — Polybius, The Histories Book 19 (19.2.1), Greek & English

§19.2.1

ingens numerus erat bello punico captorum, quos hannibal, cum ab suis non redimerentur, venum dederat.¹ multitudinis eorum argumentum est, quod polybius scribit centum talentis eam rem achaeis stetisse,² cum quingenos denarios³ pretium in capita, quod redderetur dominis, statuissent.

There was a huge number of those captured in the Punic War, whom Hannibal had sold into slavery because they were not ransomed by their own people. The proof of their multitude is what Polybius writes: that this matter cost the Achaeans one hundred talents, when they had fixed the price per head to be paid to their owners at five hundred denarii.

Syntax notes3 items

19.2.1venum dederat
Pluperfect of the idiom venum dare ('to sell', 'to sell into slavery'). venum is an accusative of direction/purpose related to veneo ('to be sold').
19.2.1centum talentis eam rem achaeis stetisse
The verb stare combined with a dative (person) and an ablative (price) means 'to cost (someone) (an amount)'. Here, eam rem is the accusative subject of the infinitive stetisse, achaeis is the dative, and centum talentis is the ablative of price.
19.2.1quingenos denarios
The distributive numeral quingeni ('five hundred each') is used in coordination with in capita ('per head') to indicate the individual price of five hundred denarii set for each ransomed captive.

Translated by Gemini 3.5 Flash (published 2026-05-25) · Revision history (2, latest 2026-10-09)

2026-10-09 Collated with the printed edition — source 2

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0543.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:19.2.1