Polybius
Roman-era Greek chronicler
Polybius was a Greek historian of the second century BCE, best known for his detailed account of Rome's rise to dominance over the Mediterranean world.
His *Histories* emphasized practical lessons and cause-and-effect analysis.
The Polybius square is a cipher system that converts letters to two-digit coordinates on a grid, attributed to him though probably not his invention.
Accounts of past events
- MegalopolisMassive continuous urban area
- RomeItaly's capital city
- CarthagePhoenician colony that challenged Rome
- ScipioRoman general, African surname
Hannibal · eyewitness · chronicle · annals · historiography · Livy · constitution · Republic
Framework of intersecting lines
- encryptionConverting data into code
- decryptionConverting ciphertext to plaintext
- coordinatesLocation-specifying number pairs
- transpositionSwapping positions of elements
substitution · telegraphy · cryptography · plaintext · ciphertext · digraph · fractionation · checkerboard
Arched passageway or gaming hall
- creepypastaUser-made online horror tales
- 1980sFourth-to-last twentieth-century decade
- coin-operatedActivated by inserted currency
- hallucinationsPerceptions without external cause
amnesia · hoax · conspiracy
Histories
Accounts of past events
- MegalopolisMassive continuous urban area
- RomeItaly's capital city
- CarthagePhoenician colony that challenged Rome
Scipio · Hannibal · eyewitness · chronicle · annals · historiography · Livy · constitution · Republic · Greek
grid
Framework of intersecting lines
- encryptionConverting data into code
- decryptionConverting ciphertext to plaintext
- coordinatesLocation-specifying number pairs
transposition · substitution · telegraphy · cryptography · plaintext · ciphertext · digraph · fractionation · checkerboard · alphabet
arcade
Arched passageway or gaming hall
- creepypastaUser-made online horror tales
- 1980sFourth-to-last twentieth-century decade
- coin-operatedActivated by inserted currency
hallucinations · amnesia · hoax · conspiracy
PolybiusHerodotus
Ancient Greek historiographer
Livy · mythographers · annalists · Plutarch · court historians
poly, polymath, polygon, polyglot, polymer, polytheism, polysemy, biography, biology