polybius

INTRODUCTION
“Greece would not have fallen had it obeyed Polybius in everything, and when Greece did meet disaster, its only help came from him.” Pausanias, 8.37.2, Inscription on the Temple of Despoina near Arakesion.
This was the intricate political structure that existed when Polybius wrote his Universal. Polybius the Greek-born practical politician, demonstrated the virtues of the Roman system, and explained its success.
This success was the result of mixed constitution, drawing on aspects of the monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic systems. Governmental structures could take more forms than Aristotle had suggested. Polybius explained not only the nature of these structures, but also the inevitability of their degeneration, unless precautions were taken. His theory of constitutional change and of the cyclical recurrence, progress and fall of all governmental systems, was the basis for his advocacy of a mixed constitution, which would produce stability.
The Roman system was one in which several groups possessed power, each connected with and limited by the power of others. The consuls, the executive monarchical element, depended on the Senate and the whole people for support. The powerful Senate, the aristocratic element, had to take the masses into account. The Tribunes, the democratic element, carried out the decisions of the people. Each group could be checked by the others. But all combined against the common enemy, both internal and external; all co-operated to obtain execution of policy.[1]









LIFE

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Mediterranean world famous for his book called The Histories or The Rise of the Roman Empire, covering the period of 220 BC to 146 BC.
Polybius had fared better than most of the leaders and intellectuals that Rome had taken from Achaea. While a prisoner, he met the head of one of Rome’s great families, Scipio Aemilianus. Scipio found Polybius good company and exchanged books with him. He took Polybius with him on military campaigns, and he introduced Polybius to Rome’s high society. Polybius remained in Rome after the other captives returned to Greece, and Scipio became his patron while he attempted to write the history of Rome to 146 BCE—a work that happened to be compatible with the views of his patron. Polybius accompanied Scipio to Carthage and witnessed its destruction in the third Punic War. Polybius covers the history of the Second Punic War as well, relying on information available to him in Roman records. Polybius is one of the most important early historians.[2]
Polybius sought to explain how Rome was able to become master over the Greeks. He described the Romans as having moderation, integrity, valor, boldness, discipline and frugality in greater amounts than have other peoples. This, he wrote, enabled Rome to unite and to close ranks when faced with danger. His fellows Greeks, he wrote, were more literate and educated by the Romans but when faced with adversity they have weakened themselves by division and argument. Polybius described the superiority of Romans as belonging mainly to the aristocrats. Common people, Roman and otherwise, he saw as lightheaded, filled with lawless appetites and inclined towards burst of anger and fits of temper. He described the recent rebellion of Greece’s common people against Rome as insane folly, and he believed that despite this abuses Rome was bestowing upon the Greeks great benefits.[3]
Polybius saw Rome’s patriarchal tradition and its religion as serving the cohesion that made Rome successful. Awe of the supernatural, he wrote, helps to pacify the common man’s anarchic temper. And he describes Rome’s elite and other ruling elites as using religion with this in mind. Polybius saw Rome’s success as partly the result of it’s willingness to enforce discipline by such punishments as executing a sentry for neglecting his duty or beating a soldier with a cudgel for throwing away his weapon, or beating a soldier for boasting in order to get a decoration, or for homosexuality. He saw strength in Rome’s willingness to punish by decimation—the killing of every tenth man—in any military unit that had displayed cowardice.
Polybius believed that societies went through cycles of growth, decay, and fall. And believing that low birth rates contributed to decline, he warned Rome’s aristocracy about their declining numbers. He rote of the incorruptibility of the Romans but warned them about their new hedonism and the lack of discipline that was creeping into their army. He warned them about the spread of indifference and a growing influence of the mob.
Polybius wrote that Rome’s success was in part the result of its superior institutions and in part the result of its superior people, and at least a few historians in modern times would describe the Romans as having had a genius at making law. [4]














PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

Polybius born about 200 BC in Arcadia, the son of a prominent statesman and an important statesman and soldier in his own right, had been taken as a prisoner from Greece to Rome, where he became a friend of Scipio. Polybius the Greek-born practical politician, demonstrated the virtues of the Roman system, and explained its success. This success was the result of a mixed constitution, drawing on aspects on the monarchial, aristocratic and democratic systems.
As the former tutor of ScipioAemilianus, the famous adopted grandson of the famous general Scipio Africanus, Polybius remained on terms of the most cordial friendship and remained a counselor to the man who defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War. The younger Scipio eventually invaded Carthage and forced them to surrender unconditionally.
Polybius was a member of the governing class, with first-hand opportunities to gain deep insight into military and political affairs. His political career was devoted largely towards maintaining the independence of the Achaean League. As the chief representative of the policy of neutrality during the war of the Romans against Perseus of Macedonia, he attracted the suspicion of the Romans, and was one of the 1,000 noble Achaeans who in166 BC were transported to Rome as hostages, and detained there for seventeen years. In Rome by virtue of his high culture, he was admitted to the most distinguished houses, in particular to that of Aemilius Paulus, the conqueror in the First Macedonian War, who entrusted him with the education of his sons Fabius, and the younger Scipio. Through Scipio’s intercession in 150 BC, Polybius obtained leave to return home, but in the very next year he went with his friend to Africa, and was present at the capture of Carthage that he described.
After the destruction of Corinth in the same year, he returned to Greece and made use of his Roman connections to lighten the conditions there; Polybius was entrusted with the difficult task of organizing the new form of government in the Greek cities, and in this office gained for himself the highest recognition.
The succeeding years he seems to have spent in Rome, engaged in the completion of his historical work, and occasionally undertaking long journeys through the Mediterranean countries in the interest of his history, more particularly with a view to obtaining first-hand knowledge of historical sites. It also appears that he sought out and interviewed war veterans in order to clarify details of the events he was writing about, and was given access to archival material for the same purpose. After the death of Scipio he returned once again to Greece, where he died at the age of 82, from a fall from his horse.

























AS A HISTORIAN
Livy used him as a reference and Polybius had excellent sources. Polybius narrated events, which came within his own experience. He is one of the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination of tradition, conducted with keen criticism; partly upon also what he had himself seen, and upon the communications of eyewitnesses and actors in the events. In a classic story of human behavior, Polybius captures it all: nationalism, racism, duplicitous politics, horrible battles, brutality, etc.: along with loyalty, valor, bravery, intelligence, reason, and resourcefulness. With his eye for detail and characteristic critically reasoned style, Polybius provided a unified view of history rather than a chronology.
Considered by some to be the successor of Thucydides as far as objectivity and critical reasoning, and the forefather of scholarly, painstaking historical research in the modern scientific sense. According to this view, his work sets forth the course of occurrences with clearness, penetration, sound judgment and, among the circumstances affecting the result, lays special stress on the geographical conditions. It belongs, therefore, to the greatest productions of ancient historical writing. The writer of the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1973) praises him for his “earnest devotion to truth” and for his systematic seeking for the cause of events.
Recently Polybius writing has come under more critical assessment. In Peter Green’s view (Alexander to Actium) he is often partisan, aiming to justify his and his father’s careers. He goes out of his way to portray the Achaean politician Callicrates in a bad light, leading the reader to suspect that this is due to Callicrates being responsible for him being sent to Rome as hostage. More fundamentally he, as first hostage in Rome, then client to the Scipios, and then finally as collaborator with Roman rule after 146 BC, is not free to express his true opinions. Green suggests that we should always keep in mind that he was explaining Rome to a Greek audience and that further of the need to convince his fellow countrymen of the necessity of accepting Roman rule which he believed as inevitable. Nonetheless, for Green, Polybius’s histories remain invaluable and the best source for the era he covers.


AN ANALYSIS OF THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT
Rome with the end of the Punic War, 146 BC, had completely conquered the last of the civilized world. The best authority for this period of her history is Polybius. He was born in Arcadia, in 204 BC and died in 122 BC. Polybius is the most reliable, but not the most brilliant, of ancient historians.
The three kinds of government, monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, were all found united in the commonwealth of Rome. And so even was the balance between them all, and so regular the administration that resulted from their union, that it was no easy thing to determine with assurance, whether the entire state was to be estimated an aristocracy, a democracy, or a monarchy. If they turned their view upon the power of the consuls, the government appeared to be purely monarchical and regal. If, again, the authority of the state was considered, it then seems to wear the form of aristocracy. And, lastly, if regard was to be had to the share, which the people possessed in the administration of affairs, it could then scarcely fail to be denominated a popular state. The several powers that were appropriated to each of these distinct branches of the constitution at the time of which we are speaking, and which with very little variation, are even still preserved, are these, which follow.
The consuls when they remain in Rome, before they lead out the armies into the field, are the masters of all public affairs.
[1] Michael Curtis, The Great Political Theories: from Plato and Aristotle to Locke and Montesquie (New York: The Hearst Corporation, 1961), 114, 115.
[2] Arnold J. Toynbee, Greek Historical Thought: A Mentor Book (New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1952), 25
[3] Chester G. Starr, A History of the Ancient World (Oxford Univ. Press, Inc., 1965), 59
[4] John Morrow, History of Political Thought (New York: Grove, 1963), 14