Polybius Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Polybius (ca. 200 BCE–120 BCE) was a Greek historian who was born in Megalopolis. When Rome conquered Greece and Macedon in the Battle of Pydna in 168 BCE, Polybius was one of one thousand Achaean hostages taken to Rome, where he was detained for seventeen years. He managed to become friends with members of noble Roman families, including General Aemilius Paulus, the victor of Pydna, and his son, P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. The latter, whom Polybius tutored, and with whom he became lifelong friends, was later the conqueror and destroyer of Carthage, and the most important political figure of his time. Polybius was by Scipio’s side as Carthage burned and Scipio wept for fear that the same fate might one day befall Rome.

Polybius’s main work, the Histories (1922–1927), examines Rome’s rise and conquest of “nearly the whole inhabited world.” Most of the work’s original forty books are lost. Among the surviving portions, however, is much of Book 6, in which Polybius describes the success of Rome as stemming mainly from the form of its constitution, which he viewed as “mixed.” Polybius begins from the traditional classification of constitutions—good and bad forms of rule by the one, the few, and the many. He asserts that constitutions move in a cycle, each form changing into the next, continuously. He begins with kingship. Although the king rules well, his sons grow up in luxury, which causes them to become selfish and to rule in their own interest rather than that of the city when they succeed to power. Thus kingship gives way to tyranny, the oppressiveness of which leads the best citizens to band together to overthrow the tyrant and establish an aristocracy. A similar process leads to the corruption of the next generation, and thus to a general revolt by the people. The people install a democracy, which in turn becomes corrupted and so requires overthrow and the establishment once again of a kingship. According to Polybius, each of the three simple forms of constitution has an inherent defect, as iron is susceptible to rust.

It is possible, however, to arrest the cycle by combining the different simple forms in a mixed constitution. Polybius attributes the success of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta to a constitution along these lines, which combined monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements. Its constitution contained a double kingship, a council of elders, and a popular assembly. The same principle was responsible for the success of Rome, in which consuls, the Senate, and the popular assembly represented the three elements. Because of this complicated mixture, a person looking at the Roman constitution would not be able to tell if it were a monarchy, an aristocracy, or democracy.

Central to Polybius’s analysis is the way different institutions work to counteract possible abuses by others. Although he does not use the terms, his theory presents an important early version of checks and balances. However, his theory is subject to obvious criticisms. In addition to the clear historical fancifulness of his cycle, his analysis of constitutions is purely formal, focusing exclusively on the number of rulers in each form of state and failing to take into account wider social and political factors that affect political stability and instability. In spite of its problems, his theory held great attractions for subsequent theorists, including Marcus Tullius Cicero and, more surprisingly, Niccolò Machiavelli. In addition, the idea of combining institutions that represent rule by the one, the few, and the many is present in the U. S. Constitution, which thus also exhibits Polybius’s influence.

Bibliography:

Cicero, Marcus Tullius. On the Commonwealth. Translated and edited by George Holland Sabine and Stanley Smith. Indianapolis, Ind.: Library of Liberal Arts, 1976.
Eckstein, Arthur M. Moral Vision in the Histories of Polybius. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Fritz, Kurt von. The Theory of the Mixed Constitution in Antiquity. New York: Columbia University Press, 1954.
The Histories. Translated by W. H. Paton. 6 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1922–1927.
Walbank, Frank W. Polybius. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.

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