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Polybius: The Histories. Robin Waterfield translation.

 

Having completed his first pentad of books on the beginning of the Roman Empire, Polybius interrupts his narrative to describe Rome’s regime. “I am sure that some people will wonder why” (VI.2). Such readers have forgotten what he wrote at the beginning of his history: “I said that the most admirable and educational part of my project was that it would let my readers know and understand how, and thanks to what kind of regime, an unprecedented event occurred—the conquest of almost all the known world in somewhat under fifty-three years, and its submission to just one ruler, Rome” (VI.2). 

But why insert the promised regime analysis at this point in the narrative? Polybius invokes ordinary experience. “In everyday life, if people intend to reach a true assessment of someone, to decide whether he is bad or good, they do not base the investigation on those periods of his life when he was untroubled by external circumstances; they look at how he behaved when he was afflicted by misfortune or blessed by success, because they think that the only way to tell whether a man is fully qualified is to see whether or not he is capable of enduring total changes of fortune with courage and without compromising his principles” (VI.2). So, too, with a regime: “and so, since I could find no change in recent history more rapid or extreme than the one the Romans experienced at that time, I postponed the account of the Roman constitution until I had reached this point of my narrative,” when Rome found itself assailed and nearly ruined by the greatest general it ever faced (VI.2). What is more—and here Polybius shows that he is preeminently a political historian—whatever the circumstances might be, “the chief cause of either success or the opposite is, I would claim, the nature of a state’s regime”—not ‘race, class, and/or gender’ or any other subpolitical cause, or any concatenation of such causes (VI.2). 

The Roman regime isn’t easy to describe, being what classical writer call a ‘mixed regime’ or ‘polity.’ Aristotle calls the mixed regime the hardest of all regimes to identify because, depending on which element seems to predominate at a given time, it might appear to be a democracy to one observer, an oligarchy to another. Aristotle famously classifies regimes into six main types: kingship and tyranny, aristocracy and oligarchy, mixed regime and democracy. That is, the rule of one, few, or many can be good or bad, and their goodness or badness derives from the kinds of rule Aristotle already noted in the household, namely, the rule of parents over children, whereby parents command their children for the good of the children, the rule of masters over slaves, whereby masters command their slaves for the good of the masters, and the mutual rule of husband and wife, a reciprocal rule, a relation of both ruling and being rule that Aristotle describes as ‘political’ rule. Good monarchs, kings, rule their subjects as parents rule children; good aristocrats rule their subjects that way, too. Bad monarchs, oligarchs, and democrats rule their subjects for the good of themselves, not the good of their subjects. The mixed regime, a mixture of two bad regimes, oligarchy and democracy, is nonetheless good because it alone features reciprocal rule; neither the oligarchs nor the democrats can rule the other class without its consent. If no law can be passed without approval of both classes, then only such laws as serve the interests of both are likely to be enacted. As an additional precaution, Aristotle recommends that founders of mixed regimes take measures to foster the growth of a third class, a ‘middling’ class, neither rich nor poor, which can act as an arbiter, a sort of balance wheel, between the few who are rich and the many who are poor. The word Aristotle uses for ‘polity’—politeia—is also the word he uses for the element of any regime that consists of offices, ruling institutions. This emphasizes the fact that the mixed regime best exhibits the reciprocity, the ‘ruling and being ruled’ seen in the reciprocal rule of husbands and wives in the household, the strictly ‘political’ form of rule.

Specifically, Aristotle recommends institutions that borrow practices and ruling institutions characteristic of oligarchy and of democracy, insuring that each class can defend itself from the other and act freely. So, for example, fine the rich if they don’t serve on juries and pay the poor for serving. Have a minimum property qualification for those who vote on laws, as oligarchies and even some democracies do, but set it at a level lower than that of oligarchies, higher than that of democracies. When filling ruling offices, choose some officers by lot—which is the truly democratic method—others by election and/or property assessment. 

Although Polybius shares Aristotle’s esteem for the ‘polity’ or mixed regime, he defines it more broadly and offers a somewhat different way of classifying regimes generally. He concurs with Aristotle in identifying two forms of monarchy, one good and one bad. “We reserve the name ‘kingship’ for monarchy which has the subjects’ consent and which governs by rational principles rather than by fear and coercion,” which are the techniques of tyrants (VI.iv). Like Aristotle, he finds gradations within each regime. For example, “what we call democracy is a system where the majority decision prevails, but which retains the traditional principles of piety towards the gods, care of parents, respect for elders, and obedience to the laws,” whereas the worst democracy is really “ochlocracy” or mob rule (VI.iv). All of this follows Aristotle.

He begins to venture beyond Aristotelian analysis—actually introducing a motif resembling Socrates’ account of regime change in the Republic—with his famous account of the natural cycle of regimes. Modern readers accustomed to such ‘historicist’ philosophies as propounded by Hegel and Marx, often confuse this with historicism. In the thought of modern historicists, ‘history’ consists of the course of events whereby human beings systematically and progressively master nature rather than embodying it. But Polybius conceives of no ‘Absolute Spirit’ unfolding dialectically over time or any other super-natural law governing the overall course of events. For him, ‘Fortune’ is random. What is not random is nature, whose laws govern the conception, growth, and decline of individual entities, including human bodies and human regimes. Natural law accounts for the regime cycle. The course of events—what we, following Hegel and his epigoni call ‘history’—is actually “the natural, spontaneous course of events” (VI.iv), fundamentally similar to the orbiting of planets. Like other natural phenomena, the course of events is governed by a law that works through individual entities—in this case, political communities. It doesn’t govern the world as a whole; Rome rises to rule the “known world” by virtue of its regime, and eventually it will lose its rule over the world primarily because the laws of nature will cause it to decline, not because the world itself will ‘evolve.’ In fact, the main worldwide natural phenomenon is catastrophe, not progress, as Polybius will soon argue.

The archē or beginning of human life is unclear, but “legend has it that in the past the human race has been annihilated by catastrophes such as flood, famine, and crop-failure, and there is every reason to think that the same will happen in the future too, over and over again” (VI.v). Such telluric disasters “also entail the simultaneous loss of all the arts and crafts” (VI.v). Being human—that is, social and political—the survivors “naturally enough…form bands,” “compensat[ing] for their natural weakness by herding together with others of their own kind” (VI.v). “Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that anyone with exceptional physical strength and mental daring will take command and set himself up as ruler over the rest,” just as we see in other animal herds, also ruled by an ‘alpha male,’ “the strongest and most aggressive man among them”; “it is a truly natural function” (VI.v). Polybius calls this regime neither kingship nor tyranny but monarchy, simply. 

Kingship arises when (again, naturally) “there gradually arise within these groups feelings of kinship and intimacy, and then for the first time people acquire the concepts of good and bad, and right and wrong” (VI.v). This occurs because “the urge to mate is a universal, natural instinct” resulting in the birth of children; when “some of these children, after being reared and reaching maturity, fail to defend or otherwise show gratitude towards those who brought them up,” even “speaking ill of them and doing them harm,” this displeases and offends not only their parents but those who witnessed “the care lavished on them by their parents and the trouble they took” to feed and otherwise ensure their survival (VI.vi). Why? Because “human beings differ from other animals in that they alone have rational intelligence” and thus will not “overlook this abnormal behavior, as other animals do” (VI.vi). Not only do they disapprove of such ingratitude, they think “that in the future each of them too might find himself at the receiving end of such treatment” (VI.vi). That is, with the capacity to reason, human beings can generalize from particulars and to some degree foresee that a given action or set of actions might be harmful not only to others but to themselves. “As a result of these situations, a certain conception gradually arises within each individual of the importance of duty, and he begins to reflect upon it. This is the be-all and end-all of the sense of right and wrong.” (VI.vi).

Therefore, “if someone takes it upon himself to be the chief defender of everyone in times of danger, by resisting and retaliating against the most aggressive animals, it is likely that the general populace will signify their gratitude and respect for him while condemning and disapproving of anyone who conducts himself in the opposite way” (VI.vi). They will begin to differentiate between good and bad alpha males. If “the man of the greatest strength consistently supports what the general populace has come to think of as good and bad” they will “stop being frightened of his power, and accept his rule more because they approve of his policies,” going so far as to “work together to preserve his rule” and to “wholeheartedly defend him against the assaults and schemes of those who would put an end to his dominion” (VI.vi). “In this way, monarchy imperceptibly slides into kingship, when reason replaces forcefulness and strength at the helm” (VI.vi). Having gained “first-hand experience” of the difference between “excellence and intelligence” on the one hand, and “physical strength and all forcefulness” on the other, they establish criteria of what philosophers later call natural right by which they judge their rulers (VI.vii).

In so judging, they usually consent to hereditary kingship because “men born from kings and brought up under their influence will share their principles” (VI.vii). The problems arise from the ensuing prosperity. As kingly authority passed “from generation to generation within the same family,” and the necessities of life have been not only acquired but secured, “there was so much of everything” that kings were “tempted…to begin to indulge their appetites” (VI.vii). They began to put on airs, dressing differently from their subjects and eating foods “prepared in distinctive and elaborate ways,” demanding “total sexual freedom, even to the extent of sleeping with inappropriate partners” (VI.vii). But the people now had criteria of justice. They resented such behavior, find it disgusting; this “in turn kindled hatred and hostile anger in the kings, and so kingship gave way to tyranny” (VI.vii). Conspiracies began to form against the new tyrants, “not in the lowest strata of society, but among the most noble, high-minded, and courageous men, because they are the ones who find it hardest to bear insolence from those set over them” (VI.vii).

Crucially, the “common people” allied with these aristocrats-by-nature, the people’s “new champions” (VI.viii). “Kingship and tyranny were wholly obliterated, and a new era of aristocracy began” (VI.viii). But again, as nature would have it, the aristocrats’ sons, having “no conception of hardship and just as little of political equality or the right of any citizen to speak his mind, because all their lives they had been surrounded by their fathers’ powers and privileges… either dedicated themselves to rapaciousness and unscrupulous money-making, or to drinking and the non-stop partying that goes with it, or to seducing women and preying on boys, and in the process, they changed aristocracy into oligarchy” (VI.viii). As before, “feelings of resentment and disgust” arose among the people and the oligarchs “met with just as catastrophic an end as the tyrants” (VI.viii). That is, just as nature moves in natural cycles on earth, with birth, growth, decay followed by telluric disaster, so too are political regimes founded, strengthened, weakened, ruined, and replaced. 

In the case of oligarchy, “sooner or later, someone noticed how his fellow citizens resented and hated the ruling oligarchs, and when he summoned up the courage to speak or act against them, he found that the general populace was ready to back him all the way” (VI.ix). But not all the way back to kingship. “Fear of past monarchic injustice deterred them from setting up a king, and the recent villainy of the oligarchs dissuaded them from entrusting the government to just a few men”; being rational, the people therefore consented to “the only remaining untried alternative,” that is, “to rely on themselves” (VI.viii). Such autarchia or self-rule, self-sufficiency, “changed the regime from oligarchy to democracy” (VI.ix). Decline began in the third generation of democratic rulers, when “the principles of equal and free speech were too familiar to seem particularly important, and some people began to want to get ahead of everyone else”; such wealthy men “squandered their fortunes on bribing and corrupting the general populace in all sorts of ways” (VI.ix). The “inane hunger for glory” of the rich “made the common people greedy for such largesse and willing to accept it” (VI.ix). “For once people had grown accustomed to eating off others’ tables and expected their daily needs to be met, then, when they found someone to champion their cause—a man of vision and daring, who had been excluded from political office by his poverty—they instituted government by force; they banded together and set about murdering, banishing, and redistributing land, until they were reduced to a bestial state and once more gained a monarchic master” (VI.ix). This is “the natural way in which regimes develop, metamorphose, and start all over again” (VI.ix). 

Rome itself will experience this. “The Roman regime is a superb example of a system whose formation and growth have always been natural, and whose decline will therefore also conform to natural laws” (VI.ix). Hence the mixed regime, whereby the founder seeks to arrest the natural cycle seen in the succession of the other regimes by blending their elements. Lycurgus understood this. In Sparta, he “bundled all the merits and distinctive characteristics of the best systems of government in order to prevent any of them from growing beyond the point where it would degenerate into its congenital vice. He wanted the potency of each system to be counteracted by the others,” establishing “a high degree of balance and equilibrium,” thanks to “the principle of reciprocity”—that is, the political principle strictly speaking (VI.x). It is noteworthy that Polybius does not follow Aristotle in his account of the mixed regime, inasmuch as the kind of mixture he favors consists not of elements from two bad regimes but of good elements of the good regimes. He also does not follow Aristotle in his judgment of Lycurgus’ mixed regime. Aristotle finds almost nothing good in it. [1] It is an open question whether Polybius intends his readers to compare his account to Aristotle’s and to draw certain conclusions about Rome thereby.

Be this as it may, Polybius assures us that in Sparta’s mixed regime “kings were prevented from becoming overbearing by fear of the citizen body, who were assigned a fair share in government; the common citizens, in their turn, were deterred from disrespecting the kings by fear of the elders, all of whom were bound to cleave constantly to justice, because the criterion for selection for the Council of Elders was virtue” (VI.x). As a result, “the regime so framed by Lycurgus preserved independence in Sparta longer than anywhere else in recorded history” (VI.ix). Rome has been similarly on track, although in their case they did not found their regime by reasoning, as Lycurgus did, but by “many struggles and trials” (VI.x). Although the Roman polis had a legendary founder, Romulus, its characteristic regime had no one founder or set of founders. The Romans came to it over a long period of time. “On every occasion, they drew on the knowledge they had gained from their setbacks to make the best choices, and this enabled them to achieve the same result as Lycurgus, and to make theirs the best regime in the world today” (VI.x). 

“There were three fundamental building blocks of the Roman regime” (VI.xi): the monarchic consulship, the aristocratic senate, and the democratic assembly. The consulship isn’t literally monarchic but dual. When in Rome, before taking armies into the field, they are “responsible for all matters of public concern,” as they present envoys to the Senate, set the Senate’s agenda, carry out Senatorial decrees, convene, present bills to, and preside over the popular assembly, and enjoy “almost unlimited” powers over war preparations and wartime measures (VI.xii). The Senate controls the treasury—the collection of all revenues and the management of their disbursement, except for monies withdrawn by consuls in wartime. For example, other officials must request its permission to spend money on the construction and repair of public buildings (“by far the state’s greatest expense” [VI.xiii]). The Senate also deals with all crimes “that require public investigation,” such as treason, conspiracy, mass poisoning, and gang murder (VI.xiii). The Senate conducts foreign policy, commissioning embassies and declaring war. “None of these matters is the responsibility of the people, and so…a visitor to Rome who arrived when the consuls were away would think the regime was thoroughly aristocratic” (VI.xiii). But “the people do have a part to play, and a very important one at that, because they control rewards and punishments” in matters concerning ordinary criminal law (VI.xiv). Without “these functions,” “human life itself has no coherence, let alone governments and regimes” (VI.xiv). For example, they adjudicate death penalty cases. And although the Senate declares war, it is the popular assembly which decides “whether or not to go to war” and whether or not to “ratify or abrogate alliances, truces, and treaties” (VI.xiv). 

How do these three ruling bodies check and balance one another? Even in the field, the consuls still need both the people and the Senate. The Senate appropriates supplies for the army, chooses whether to limit his term to one year or to extend it, and chooses whether to honor a returning victorious consul with a triumph or to minimize the honors. The popular assembly not only controls the peace settlement after the war but audits the consul’s conduct after his term has expired.

The Senate “has to pay particular attention to the masses in the political sphere and to defer to the people” (VI.xvi) because any punishment of political crimes adjudicated by the senators must be approved by the assembly. The people can also cut senatorial salaries, “deprive the Senate of some of its traditional authority, or abolish senatorial privileges such as the right to the best seats in the theatres”—the last a formidable power, indeed. “Most importantly, if one of the tribunes of the people uses his veto, not only can the Senate not complete its deliberations, but it is not allowed even to meet or assemble at all” (VI.xvi). But although the Senate therefore fears the people, the people “depend on the Senate and are obliged to defer to it” both in their public and their private lives (VI.xvii). Contracts for the construction of building projects are controlled by the Senate, and so can “do those who manage state-owned property a great deal of harm or a great deal of good, since it has the final say on all these matters” (VI.xvii). And while the assembly adjudicates public crimes, the Senate adjudicates most major commercial lawsuits, “private or public” (VI.xvii). 

Thus, “each of the three components of the Roman regime can harm or help the other two” (VI.xviii). They are very much inclined to help one another whenever some foreign threat looms, as it did most spectacularly in the Second Punic War. In such a circumstance, “the state gains extraordinary abilities, “as everyone competes to devise ways to combat the emergency, and everyone cooperates in their public and private capacities to complete the task at hand”; moreover, “decisions are made and acted on extremely promptly” (VI.xviii). “This gives the Roman state its characteristic feature: it is irresistible, and achieves every goal it sets itself” (VI.xviii).

It can also resist the complacency and decadence that begins to undermine the other regimes within a couple of generations. When at peace, enjoying prosperity, if idleness induces one class “to arrogance and presumption,” the other classes become its rivals and prevent it from overbalancing the regime (VI.xviii). 

In addition to this institutional regime element, Rome’s military way of life has been crucial to its endurance, so far. Rome is a mixed regime, a ‘polity’ or ‘republic,’ but it is a military, not a commercial, republic. (Montesquieu’s On the Grandeur of the Romans and Their Decadence in effect reverses Polybius’ argument, charging that a military republic must decay, it it ever achieves its purpose, the conquest of the known world.) Accordingly, Polybius devoted twenty-four chapters to describing its military organization.

Military tribunes are elected after the annual consuls have been installed. There are twenty-four tribunes, fourteen with five years’ previous military service, ten with ten years. There are six tribunes per legion; each legion has 4,200 men, except in emergencies, when the number is increased to 5,000. Each legion is divided into three groups, based on age (men are eligible to serve up to the age of forty-six). Foot soldiers must serve sixteen years, cavalrymen ten. Since army men supply their own arms, the poor go into the navy, where no armor is necessary. “No one is eligible for any political post until he has completed ten years of military service” (VI.xx). Each man must swear “that he will obey his officers and carry out their orders to the best of his ability” (VI.xxi)—the moral foundation of Roman discipline. Consuls supplement the Roman troops by notifying “the ruling bodies of allied cities in Italy” concerning how many men they will be required to send; the same process of selection and oath-taking occurs in each (VI.xxi). 

After the troops have assembled, the tribunes select “ten men of suitable calibre” as company commanders or ‘centurions’; they serve on a military council; another ten men are selected as company commanders who will not serve on the council (VI.xxiv). Each centurion selects an adjutant; the centurions command units or ‘maniples,’ two centurions and two adjutants per maniple. Each maniple consists of men culled from one of the three age groups, with a fourth group, the youngest, sprinkled evenly among all. “It makes sense for there to be two centurions for each unit, because it is never clear how any given centurion is going to behave or what may happen to him. War allows no excuses, and [the Romans] never want the maniple to be without a centurion to lead it.” (VI.xxiv). “The ideal centurion, from the Romans’ point of view, is a natural leader, with a stable and resourceful cast of mind, rather than being a daring risk-taker. They would prefer to see him stand his ground under pressure and in the face of defeat, and die at his post, than launch attacks and initiate battles.” (VI.xxiv). The cavalry and the foreign troops are also carefully organized and led by Roman officers.

“When everything is ready, the tribunes take over command of both the Roman and allied contingents and make camp” (VI.xxvi). Unlike the Greeks, who adapt the configuration of their camps to the available terrain, the Romans use one one configuration, adapting the terrain to it. Although this means more work initially, it makes for far less confusion when the troops muster for battle, as every soldier knows exactly where he is and where he needs to go to break camp. The camp is a square (it “resemble[s] a town,” Polybius remarks) and it allows adequate space between the tents for getting the troops in and out of the camp in an orderly way (VI.xxxi). After the camp has been established, not only the soldiers but the accompanying slaves take another oath, not to steal from the camp “and to bring even things they find to the tribunes” (VI.xxxiii). Each company receives its assignments and the nightly watchwords are announced. Any violation of regulations will be adjudicated at a court martial consisting of the tribunes. The guilty must run the gauntlet, which few survive. Survivors may never return to their homeland; “to suffer this catastrophe once is to be completely ruined” (VI.xxxvii). Polybius drily observes that “the punishment for transgression is severe and brutal enough to ensure the faultless conduct of night watches in the Roman army” (VI.xxxvii). Fear of punishment accounts for discipline not only within the camp but in battle, keeping “men in a support force at their posts in the face of certain death against vastly superior numbers” (VI.xxxvii). 

Discipline isn’t only a matter of fear, however. “They also have an excellent system of incentives to motivate the men to face danger” (VI.xxxix). The soldier who commits an act of bravery receives a speech in his honor in front of an army assembly from the consul himself. Those who risk their lives to protect others receive medals or crowns, and the man whose life is saved by a comrade “looks up to his savior as a father, and is obliged to treat him in all respects exactly as if he were the one who had given him life” (VI.xxxix). Nor are these honors known only to the soldiers; upon returning home, the honored men may wear their decorations in public and participate in parades and processions. In all, “the meticulous care taken by the Romans over rewards and punishments in the army helps to explain their outstanding success in warfare” (VI.xxxix). 

The spirit of such a regime in the army thus pervades the general population. Habits of mind and heart including discipline, steady courage, love of honor and fear of disgrace, fostered in universal military service as a prerequisite to full citizenship, honored through the years, make the Roman regime far less likely to fall into the complacency and self-indulgence that bedevils other mixed-regime republics. This leads Polybius to an exercise in what our contemporary political scientists call ‘comparative regimes.’

He selects Sparta, Crete, and Carthage—regimes which “have long enjoyed a reputation for excellence” (VI.xliii). By contrast, the regimes of Athens and Thebes deserve less attention; although Fortune has allowed them “to flare briefly into brilliance” they quickly “experienced a complete reversal” (VI.xliii). “The Thebans’ reputation or excellence” derived from the accomplishments of “just one or two outstanding individuals,” not to the regime itself (VI.xliii). “For Thebes’s growth, prime, and collapse exactly coincided with the lives of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, and so we should regard the cause of Theban ascendancy at the time to be these men, not the regime” (VI.xliii). Similarly, the glory that was Athens really derived from the efforts of Themistocles; at most times, Athenian democracy resembled “a ship without a captain,” on which the sailors ignored those who attempted to command them, fell into factional fighting and ruin (VI.xliv). Significantly, Polybius never mentions Pericles, the most notable celebrant of Athenian democracy. Both Thebes and Athens disintegrated into ochlocracy, rule “by the whim of mobs” (VI.xlv). 

Although many political writers, including Plato and Xenophon, praise the Cretan regime, comparing it to the regime of Sparta, Polybius disagrees. The distinctive characteristics of Sparta are equality of land ownership, equality of income based on contempt for money-making, and lifetime tenure of both the king and the Council of Elders. “None of this bears the slightest resemblance to the Cretan regime,” under which Cretans litigate endlessly about landed property and money-making is considered “the most honorable occupation a man can take up” (VI.xlvi). “In general avarice and greed are so deeply entrenched in Crete that it is the only place in the world where no gain of any kind is considered sordid” (VI.xlvi). Further, all offices have one-year term limits, so the regime is far more democratic than that of Sparta. The Cretan regime should “neither be praised nor emulated” (VI.xlvi). Whatever its ruling institutions may be, any regime needs “good customs and traditions,” owing to a good way of life, to sustain it (VI.xlvii). “When we come across a state where individuals are rapacious and public policies are unjust,” the rest of the regime must be bad (VI.xlvii). So it is with Crete.

Polybius next considers an unannounced regime, the one Socrates and his dialogic partners build ‘in speech’ in Plato’s Republic (the Greek word is in fact Politeia or Regime). “It would be unfair to admit it into the discussion” for, just as “we do not let craftsmen or athletes take part in competitions unless they have been certified or trained,” it “would be just as inappropriate to let Plato’s regime compete for first prize, unless or until it proves that it can act in the real world”; otherwise, “discussing and comparing it with the Spartan, Roman, and Carthaginian regimes would be no different from bringing forward a statue for comparison with real, live human beings” (VI.xlvii). Although Plato’s dialogue itself suggests that Socrates’ regime in speech fully partakes of Socrates’ proverbial irony, Polybius needs no careful interpretation to rule it out of consideration as what Aristotle calls the best practicable regime. He need only say to those who miss Plato’s irony, put up or shut up.

He returns, then, to the Spartan regime as founded by Lycurgus, and his praise remains unstinted: “The laws Lycurgus drew up and the provisions he took to ensure concord within the citizen body, to keep Laconia safe, and to preserve Spartan autarchia strike me as so admirable that I can only regard his intelligence as superhuman” (VI.xlviii). Equal land distribution and “the simple, communal way of life” of Sparta have resulted in an ethos of self-rule, toughness, and courage within a political society free of faction (VI.xlviii). The achievements of great statesmen seldom last much beyond their lifetimes; the achievements of great founders—if you will, the greatest statesmen—last for generations.

For the first time, however, Polybius offers a criticism. Lycurgus “failed to put in place some provision or requirement, binding on his fellow citizens, that would have made the overall character of the city self-sufficient and self-restrained”; Sparta is politically and militarily aggressive, seizing its neighbors’ territory and seeking political hegemony over those farther afield (VI.xlviii). “He did nothing to stop them acting towards their fellow Greeks with extreme aggression, out of self-seeking ambition and the lust for power” (VI.xlviii). Their military prowess was instrumental in vindicating Greek liberty against the invasion of the Persian empire, but they soon turned their own imperial ambitions against the poleis they had liberated.

Empire ruined them. “They had outstripped their regime. As long as their aim had been to rule over their immediate neighbors, or even just their fellow Peloponnesians, they made do with the resources and supplies of Laconia alone, where it was easy for them to gather what they needed…. But once they began to send out fleets and land forces to campaign outside the Peloponnese, clearly Lycurgan legislation…was no longer adequate” (VI.xlix). For starters, they need “a commonly accepted currency,” not the heavy iron money they used at home; they also needed to supplement their own troop with mercenaries (VI.xlix). Not only did this require imposing taxes on the Peloponnesians and tribute from all Greeks but they chose to look to the Persians, of all peoples for newly-needed resources. 

What has any of this to do with the Romans? For self-government, “there has never been a better regime than that of the Spartans. But if one has greater ambitions than that—if one thinks that it is a finer and nobler thing to be a world-class leader, with an extensive dominion and empire, the center and focal point of everyone’s world—then one must admit that the Spartan regime is deficient, and that the Roman regime is superior and more dynamic” (VI.l). Whereas Sparta’s imperialism “brought them to the very brink of losing their own self-government,” Roman imperialism survived the Carthaginian onslaught and soon came “to subjugate the entire known world” (VI.l). 

As to the Carthaginian regime, Polybius judges its “original design” to have been “good, at any rate where its main features were concerned” (VI.li). Like Sparta and Rome, it was a mixed regime, with kings, a Council of Elders consisting of aristocrats, and offices held by the people, as well. However, “by the time they embarked on the Hannibalic War…the Carthaginian regime had become worse than that of Rome” (VI.li). By then, the people “had become the dominant political force,” whereas “in Rome this was still the Senate. Since policy was decided in Carthage by the masses and in Rome by the best men, Roman policies would prevail”; “thanks to sound decision-making, they defeated the Carthaginians in the war” (VI.li).

Specifically, the Roman regime fostered superior warcraft. Although the Carthaginians remained preeminent at sea, the Roman army was better than anything the Carthaginians could field. “The reason for this is that the Carthaginians use foreign mercenaries, whereas the Roman army consists only of domestic troops and Roman citizens,” supplemented by men culled from the Italian city-states they dominate (VI.lii). Mercenaries are loyal only to their salaries, and even those won’t motivate them to risk their lives, much. By contrast, “the Romans depend on their own valor and on the support of their allies” and they fight to death, as “their country and their children are always directly at stake for them” (VI.lii). As seen in their customs of honoring those who display battlefield courage, “the glory of those who benefited their homeland becomes common knowledge and is passed down from generation to generation,” as “young men are inspired to heroic feats of endurance, in order to gain the fame that accrues to the brave” (VI.liv). 

Reliance on mercenaries mirrors the Carthaginian regime’s commercial republicanism. “In Carthage, nothing that leads to profit is considered disgraceful, whereas in Rome nothing is more disgraceful than accepting a bribe or seeking to profit by disreputable means” (VI.lv). Likely associated with Romans’ superior morality is its “markedly superior” dispensation respecting the gods (VI.lvi). Here Polybius offers a critique of the modern Enlightenment centuries avant la lettre. “It seems to me that superstition, which we criticize in other people, is precisely what gives the Roman state its cohesion. In Rome, nothing plays a more elaborate or extensive role in people’s private lives and in the political sphere than superstition. Many of my readers might find this strange, gut it seems to me that it has been done for the sake of the common people. In a state of enlightened citizens, there would presumably be no need for such a course. But since the common people everywhere are fickle—since they are driven by lawless impulses, blind anger, and violent passion—the only option is to use mysterious terrors and all this elaborate drama to restrain them.” (VI.lvi). Indeed, “those nowadays who want to abolish religion are acting far more thoughtlessly and foolishly” than “the men who in ancient times introduced the masses to the ideas of the gods and the concept of Hades” (VI.lvi). “A Greek statesman cannot be trusted with even just a talent; that is enough to corrupt him, along with ten accountants and their seals, and twice as many witnesses,” whereas Roman statesmen are safely entrusted with “enormous sums of money in the course of their official activities” because “they feel bound by the oath they have pledged,” an oath sworn with the gods as its witnesses (VI.lvi).

Despite the character of its regime, Rome will decline. “Every existing thing is subject to decay and decline; the inescapable facts of nature are convincing in themselves” (VI.lvii). “I think there can be no doubt what lies in the future of Rome” (VI.lvii). Having achieved the prosperity of world empire, it too will begin to see increasingly luxurious ways of life and factionalism. “The causes of the deterioration will be lust for power combined with contempt for political obscurity, and personal ostentation and extravagance. It will be called a democratic revolution, however, because the time will come when the people will feel abused by some politicians’ self-seeking ambition, and will have been flattered into vain hopes by others’ lust for power.” (VI.lvii). Ochlocracy will ensue. In the event, Rome did see Caesarism, although ochlocracy came in the form of foreign invasion by barbarians, not so much the plebeians, whom the Caesars co-opted and tyrannized.

Polybius ends his account of the Roman regime with a story of Rome after Hannibal had defeated its army at Cannae. He held 8,000 Roman prisoners. The men selected ten senior officers to return to Rome and ask the Senate to ransom them. The officers swore that they would return to Hannibal’s camp after making the request. One clever fellow pretended to have forgotten something he needed for the journey, returned to the camp, then went on to Rome, thinking that by returning he’d filled the condition of the oath and so could remain in Rome. The officers came before the Senate and asked for the ransom.

“The Romans had suffered terrible defeats. At that point they had hardly any allies left, and they expected at any moment to be fighting for Rome itself. Nevertheless, after listening to hat the officers had to say, they did not let the crisis push them into responsible action, but debated the issues rationally.” (VI.lviii). They saw that Hannibal’s intention in allowing the mission was to raise money and undermine the resolution of Roman troops “by letting them know that they could hope for safety even after defeat” (VI.lviii). Not only did they refuse to grant the ransom but they sent the clever one back to Hannibal in chains. “Hannibal’s delight at having defeated them in battle was crushed by awe of the principled stand the Romans had taken in their deliberations” (VI.lviii). Given the character of its regime, Rome would not be defeated.

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

1. See Aristotle: Politics II.ix. The Spartans haven’t found a good way to govern their helots; they neglect the moral education of their women; they have misgoverned property by allowing too great disparities in wealth; the office of overseers, which has “authority over the greatest matters,” is filled “entirely from the people”—who, given their poverty, are easily bribed; nor are the overseers’ actions restrained by law; the supposedly aristocrat senate in reality consists of oligarchs, also bribable; kingship is hereditary, not based on virtue; the famous common messes in fact exclude the poor because they are funded by donations from individuals and the poor cannot afford to attend. Finally, and most significantly, “the entire organization of the laws is with a view to a part of virtue—warlike virtue; for this is useful with a view to domination. Yet while they preserved themselves as long as they were at war, they came to ruin when they were ruling an empire through not knowing how to be at leisure, and because there is no training among them that has more authority than the training for war. This error is no light one.” (1271b 34-36). This latter defect portends poorly for Rome, insofar as it is a military republic.

Polybius: The Histories. Robin Waterfield translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

 

With Book III, the central book of this pentad, Polybius begins his history proper—his narrative and political analysis of the course of events in and around the Mediterranean between 220 and 167 BC, when Rome acquired empire over “the known world.” By 220, Rome had defeated Carthage in the struggle over Sicily, acquiring Sardinia too while Carthage fought its civil war against barbarian mercenaries. Seemingly poised to dominate the western Mediterranean at least, the Romans didn’t anticipate the brilliance of Carthage’s great general, Hannibal, who led his forces into Italy, “end[ing] Roman supremacy in Italy” for a time and bringing “the Romans to the point where they fearfully expected to lose their very lives and the soil of their homeland” (III.ii). That they survived this crisis and eventually went on to conquer and rule their rivals bespeaks (in Polybius’ judgment) “the peculiar virtues of their regime” (III.ii).

It is the political dimension of this course of events that Polybius insists we appreciate. “A final assessment of the winners and losers cannot depend merely on the outcome of their struggles,” the results of military actions. “For apparently overwhelming success often proves utterly disastrous, if people fail to make proper use of it, and it is not uncommon for devastating catastrophes, if accepted with fortitude, to turn out to people’s advantage” (III.iv). Therefore, “my account of events would be incomplete if I failed to go on to describe, first, the attitude of the winners after their victory and how they ruled the world; second, how acceptable others found their rule and what they thought of the rulers; and, third, the aims and ambitions of all concerned, which governed their private lives and guided their policy-making” (III.iv). Such considerations had immediate and intense interest for Polybius and his native polis, Megalopolis, in Arcadia. His father had advocated a policy of Achaean independence from Rome; the city resisted Roman rule until 147. Although he had left Megalopolis for Rome when he saw the pro-Roman faction gaining ascendency, Polybius continued to uphold an Aristotelian appreciation for political life understood as reciprocal rule, intending to leave open the question of empire even as the Roman empire prevailed. “Such an account” as this “will enable the present generation to see whether Roman dominion is something they should seek out or shun, and will show future generations whether they should praise and admire the Roman empire, or find it abhorrent” (III.iv). 

All of this for good, Aristotelian reasons: “Educationally speaking, this will prove to be the most important aspect of my work, now and in the future. For neither rulers nor those who express opinion about them should think of victory and overall dominion as the goal of military action. It makes as little sense for a man to fight others just to crush them as it does for a man to take to the open sea just to cross it. No one gains expertise either, or learns a skill, just in order to master it; every action is only ever done for the sake of the future pleasure or good or profit it will bring the agent. So my work will be complete when it has clarified how all the various peoples felt from the time when the Romans’ victories had brought them worldwide dominion, up to the disturbed and troubled period that came afterwards.” (III.iv).

But first, the Hannibalic wars. Again following Aristotle, Polybius distinguishes between events that started the wars (the ‘efficient causes’ or archē, in Aristotelian vocabulary) and the ‘final’ or teleological causes: “I take it that the starting point of anything consists of the first application in the real world of a course of action that has already been decided upon, while the cause is what first influences one’s judgments and decisions, or, in other words, what first influences one’s idea, feelings, reasoning about the matter, and all one’s decision-making and deliberative faculties” (III.vi). The final or underlying cause of the Hannibalic wars “was surely the anger of Hamilcar Barca, the father of Hannibal,” whose “spirit remained unbowed after the Sicilian War” and therefore “kept his forces…in a state of unimpaired readiness to achieve his objectives,” watching for “a chance to attack” (III.ix). He never saw that chance but nonetheless “devoted himself to subduing Iberia, with the intention of using it as a springboard for war against Rome” (III.x). He transmitted his anger (as a sort of psychic inheritance) to his son, Hannibal, who “led him by the right hand up to the altar” at a Carthaginian military outpost in Iberia, “told him to place his hand on the [sacrificial] victim and swear unremitting hatred for the Romans” (III.xi). Hannibal thus became a “lifelong, fanatical” enemy of Rome, driven by familial and religious piety (III.xii). 

Polybius draws the lesson: “When old enemies are patched up or new friendships formed, statesmen need to make it their primary concern to discover the motives of the people involved. They need to know when people come to terms because circumstances leave them no choice, and when they do so because their spirits have been broken. They should regard the first lot as biding their time and should deal cautiously with them, but they may trust the latter, who have submitted to them, as true friends, and need not hesitate before summoning their help under any circumstances” (III.xii). Hannibal unquestionably numbered among those who bide their time, “gripped by irrational and uncontrollable anger” toward Rome (III.xv); after waiting his chance, he seized on a pretext to attack. For their part, the Romans foresaw “a major, prolonged war with Carthage”—but not then (III.xvi). Supposing they had more time, they had moved to secure their eastern flank in Illyria as a buffer against the “flourishing” Macedonian dynasty”; Hannibal “pre-empted them,” besieging and capturing the city of Saguntum, a Roman stronghold in northeastern Iberia that would have impeded his movement towards the Alps (III.xvi). “This is why the war took place all over Italy, even close to Rome itself, rather than in Iberia” (III.xvi). Subsequent Roman protests and treaties had no effect on Hannibal’s plans.

The lesson for readers: “If there is anyone who is sure that he can cope entirely on his own with every eventuality, I might agree that for him knowledge of the past is unnecessary. It would still be a good thing for such a person, but not necessary. But no mortal man is so rash as to make such a claim. Whether he is acting as a private individual or as a public official, even if things are currently going well, no one of any sense that takes that as a reliable harbinger of what will happen in the future. And so knowledge of the past is, in my opinion, necessary as well as good.” (III.xxxi). And not only bits and pieces of the past. The Second Punic War arose out of a series of events that occurred not only in Rome, Carthage, and Iberia but in Macedon and Greece. A ‘history of Rome’ or a ‘history of Carthage’ will not suffice. “I would say that the difference between partial accounts and my history is as great as the difference between hearing and understanding” (III.xxxii). “In our times…almost everything can be reached by sea or by land”; more, “men who are capable of being effective in the world have been freed of the obligation to devote themselves to warfare and statesmanship, and therefore have the perfect opportunity to investigate and study these matters”(III.lix); what they have lost in experience they can grasp by study, so that they will at least understand warcraft and statecraft, view them with a knowledgeable eye, not give themselves over to fantasies or, as much later generations would say, ideology. 

Hannibal planned meticulously for his invasion. He understood that he could only get at the Romans in Italy with the cooperation of the Italian Celtic chieftains who controlled the Alps and the lands immediately to the south of them. “He made sure that he was fully informed about the fertility of the land below the Alps and in the Po plain, the size of the population there, the fearlessness of the men in battle, and most importantly, the hatred they bore the Romans,” with whom they had clashed many times (III.xxxiv). He sent “carefully crafted messages” to the chieftains, making “extravagant promises” of future benefits in exchange for present assistance (III.xxxiv). (As for the Celts on the near side of the mountains, he would simply smash through them.) In 218 BC he ordered his troops to move, first across the Pyrenees, then the Alps; the Roman general who landed in Iberia to intercept him arrived after he’d left.

Polybius takes care to say that writers “who have written about Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps” in order “to astound their readers with the extraordinary nature of the mountains” merely “perpetuate falsehoods” and “contradict themselves” (III.xlvii). The Alps, he assures us, are eminently ‘crossable,’ as the Celts had demonstrated on several occasions; the mountains are in fact “heavily populated,” and Hannibal’s march was “highly practical,” so long as the Celts who lived there had no objection to his plans (III.xlvii) or, in some cases, were overawed by the 50,000 foot soldiers, 9,000 Numidian cavalrymen, and the never-before-seen elephants he brought with him. One Celtic tribe nonetheless surprised him with an attack, causing some losses, but even this was only a raid, not part of any sustained and coordinated resistance. The march from his Iberian headquarters to Italy took five months, the actual Alpine crossing fifteen days. His worst enemy was the winter; by the time he reached the Po valley he had lost nearly half of his men, and “the constant suffering had reduced all the survivors to a state in which they resembled wild beasts” (III.lx). After they had rested sufficiently, Hannibal took advantage of their hardships by telling them that it was now a matter of winning or dying; the Roman general Scipio’s troops were advancing, having returned to Italy from Iberia, so the only thing to do was to meet them head on. “The reward for the victors, however, would not be mere horses and cloaks,” the usual spoils of war, “but the riches of Rome, with which they would make themselves the wealthiest men in the world” (III.lxiii). “None of them, he went on, was so foolish or stupid as to believe that he would make it home if he turned to flight” (III.lxiii). By contrast, Scipio’s speech was a rather complacent account of the glories of Rome and of the supposed weakness of the Carthaginian invaders.

Just as he had planned the invasion itself with care and prudence, so Hannibal planned his battles. “Anyone who claims that any aspect of generalship is more important than knowing the character and temperament of the enemy commander certainly does not know what he is talking about,” and Hannibal studied the flaws of the enemy generals (III.lxxx). More often than not, his troops mauled the Romans, who were also betrayed by their remaining Celtic allies. Still, “the Romans are at their most formidable, as a state or as individuals, when they are genuinely threatened” (III.lxxv); knowing this, Hannibal advanced not so much via head-to-head battles but by ambushes and other stratagems designed to induce unforced errors by the defenders. But although the Roman generals were thrown into confusion and defeat, the Roman Senate “stayed suitably calm as they debated the future,” even as the Roman people failed to react “with moderation and restraint” (III.lxxxv). Even as its military leaders faltered, the regime itself held fast. They knew that Rome retained two “strengths”: “an inexhaustible supply of provisions and plenty of men,” neither of which the Carthaginian forces commanded (III.xc). And although they no longer had substantial land forces in Iberia, the Romans took the precaution of interrupting Hannibal’s supply lines and tying down the Carthaginian troops remaining in Iberia by ordering naval attacks along the coast. This resulted in some of the cities and towns there turning against the Carthaginians, even as the Carthaginians had succeeded in turning many of the Celts against Rome.

And so Hannibal decided to force the issue. At the town of Cannae, he was outnumbered by the Romans. He won that justly celebrated battle because his cavalry forces outmaneuvered the Roman foot soldiers—a lesson taken by military tacticians ever since, down to the twentieth century, when horse cavalry were replaced by the mechanized cavalry of tanks. [1] As Polybius writes, “the battle taught later generations that in wartime it is better to have half as many infantry as the enemy, and overwhelming cavalry superiority, than to have exactly the same numbers as the enemy in all respects” (III.cxviii).

“Nevertheless, the Senate continued to do their best; they tried to alleviate the general gloom, they secured the city, and they did not let fear get the better of them as they debated the crisis. And subsequent events showed that they were right…. Although their military supremacy had passed into other hands, the peculiar virtues of their constitution and their sound deliberation not only enabled them to regain dominion over Italy and then to beat the Carthaginians, but within a few years they had made themselves masters of the entire known world.” (III.cxviii).

Keeping with his own plan of giving his readers a comprehensive understanding of the Mediterranean as a geopolitical whole, Polybius doesn’t move immediately to a discussion of the Roman regime, turning away from Italy and Iberia altogether and discussing events in the east. The year 220 makes sense as a beginning point of the main narrative of his history because by then “Fortune” had effected “the complete renewal of the known world.” New rulers were poised to make their mark: Philip V in Macedon; Antiochus III in Syria; Ariarthes IV in Cappadocia; Ptolemy IV in Egypt; Lycurgus in Sparta. Additionally, Achaeus “had both the authority and the resources of a king in Asia Minor” and Hannibal now led Carthaginian troops in Italy. With these accessions came new wars: the Hannibalic War, the war for rule over Coele Syria between Antiochus and Ptolemy; and the war between the Achaean-Macedonian alliance and the Aetolian-Spartan alliance.

Polybius begins with Greece. He holds the Aetolians responsible for that war. “Their habitual bluster is expensive to maintain, and because they are completely ruled by it, they always live like rapacious beasts, and view the whole world as a hostile, uncongenial place” (IV.3). Now that “the boy-king Philip V” had inherited the Macedonian throne, they believed they saw their chance “to interfere in Peloponnesian affairs” (IV.3). They sent Dorimachus of Trichonium, a young man “who shared the aggression and rapaciousness that characterize Aetolians,” to an area bordering on Messene, an ally of the Aetolian League (IV.4). That didn’t stop Dorimachus from allowing his men to plunder the Messenians, to whom he resentfully agreed to pay restitution, while scheming to foment a war to avenge this perceived humiliation.

This alarmed and infuriated the Achaeans, who sent their best general, Aratus to assist the Messenians. This “extraordinary man” was “perfectly suited for a career as a statesman: he was a good speaker and a clear thinker, and had the ability to keep his ideas to himself; his calmness in the face of political disputes, and his ability to retain friends and gain allies, were unrivalled; he was also outstandingly good at devising ways of getting at his enemies by personal action, stealth, or cunning, and he had the patience and boldness to see these plans through to completion” (IV.viii). As a military commander his one weakness was battle in open countryside; in such circumstances he was uncharacteristically “slow-witted, hesitant, and apparently reluctant to face danger” (IV.viii). Polybius muses, “the fact is that people’s minds vary as much as their bodies”; “the same man may be talented at certain activities and backward at others,” exhibiting “extremes of intelligence and stupidity, or of daring and timidity” (IV.viii). What is true of individuals is also true of peoples. The Cretans, “unbeatable at ambushes, raids, deceiving the enemy, night attacks, and every kind of small-scale operation requiring cunning,” prove “cowardly and timid” in “a formal, face-to-face, mass assault,” whereas the Achaeans and Macedonians are usually (with the exception of Aratus) just the opposite (IV.viii). 

Outmaneuvered by the Aetolians, Aratus lost his first battle against them and the ‘Social War’ was on. Facing a hostile assembly at home, Aratus prudently “asked to be forgiven for any mistakes he had made during the battle” while reminding the Achaeans of his many previous accomplishments on their behalf. “His words changed the mood of the assembly so rapidly and decisively that those of his political enemies who had attacked him completely fell from favor and from then on the Achaeans adopted Aratus’ policies in everything” (IV.xii). On his recommendation, they appealed to Philip of Macedon, the Messenians, and the Spartans for troops. Unsurprised by Aetolian aggression—it “was, after all, normal Aetolian behavior”—Philip for the time did nothing; “unremitting wrongdoing is more likely to be pardoned than occasional, abnormal iniquity” (IV.xvi). The Spartans responded by secretly allying themselves with the Aetolians. They promised support to the Achaeans, then sent many fewer men than promised.

With its numerous city-states, Greece offers Polybius excellent opportunities for the study of ‘comparative politics.’ He doesn’t neglect them. Why, for example, are the Arcadian people generally so good and the Cynaetheans—ruling a city in the region, ethnically identical to their neighbors—the “most brutal and lawless people in Greece at that time,” even worse than the Aetolians? “The Arcadian people as a whole have a reputation throughout the Greek world for moral virtue. They are polite and friendly by disposition and upbringing, and above all they revere the gods. The savagery of the Cynaetheans is therefore puzzling.” (IV.xx). Polybius suggests that they were missing a crucial regime element, “the first and only Arcadians to abandon an excellent practice that had been instituted by their forebears, a practice which took into consideration the natural characteristics of the people there”: the practice of music, which the Arcadians had made the “constant companion” of children and young men, up to the age of thirty (IV.xx). The young sing “the traditional songs and paeans with which each community hymns its local heroes and gods”; “every year they put on a keenly contested dance competition in their theaters” and throughout the year they sing at home parties (IV.xx). “The men of old who introduced these practices had a very good reason for doing so” (IV.xxi). Far from considering music “a superfluous luxury,” they understood that most Arcadians were peasants; “life is a hard grind for them” (IV.xi). In addition, the climate of Arcadia is cold and dank; since “all over the world people inevitably come to resemble the prevailing climatic conditions,” Arcadians “tend towards dourness”—the Scotsmen of Greek antiquity (IV.xxi). “It was because they wanted to soften and temper the inflexibility and insensitivity of the Arcadian character that they introduced al these practices, and for the same reason they also instituted the custom, for both men and women, of shared public meetings and sacrificial festivals, of which there are very many in Arcadia, and also festivals at which girls and boys dance together. In short, the sole purpose for which they were striving was to introduce practices that tamed and mitigated Arcadian obduracy.” (IV.xxi).

The Cynaetheans, however, were having none of it. They “utterly neglected these practices, despite the fact that, because their climate and landscape are by far the most severe in Arcadia, they had more need of this kind of help than anyone else” (IV.xxi). As a consequence, “there is no Greek city anywhere in the world where worse and more constant crimes have been committed” (IV.xxi). That great student of the interplay between climate, political regimes, and character, Montesquieu, knew his Polybius.

Polybius also considers the Spartan regime, which had just changed from their traditional monarchy, with “unquestioning obedience” to kings as the way of life, to democracy (IV.xxii). They weren’t ready for self-government, however. “Now that they had no kings, no one wanted anyone else to have more political power than himself, and the in-fighting began” (IV.xxii); as a much later political observer put it, faction is to republics as fire is to air. When one of the ephors made a speech advocating continued alliance with the Macedonians, who had liberated them from monarchy, he was assassinated by his rivals, unreconstructed monarchists who had made alliance with some military officers. With Sparta now surreptitiously on their side, the Aetolians prepared for war against the Achaean League and its new ally, Philip of Macedon, who rightly felt betrayed by the ruling faction in Sparta—the city his father had helped to liberate. Polybius draws the lesson, with respect to the Spartans and the Aetolian League with whom they allied themselves: “There is never any difference between crimes committed against individuals and political crimes, except that the latter involve more and larger consequences. Small-scale swindlers and thieves fail above all because they do not treat one another fairly, or, in general, because they cheat one another, and this is exactly what the Aetolians had done.” (IV.xxix). After another coup in 219, “the Spartans, who had enjoyed the finest regime in Greece ever since the legislation of Lycurgus, and who had been the most powerful military presence in Greece until the battle of Leuctra, went into decline when Fortune changed and turned against them. Their regime gradually deteriorated, and in the end no polis was more plagued by trouble and strife, no polis more racked by land reforms and political banishments”; “they came to experience a harsher form of servitude than anyone else in Greece”—all owing to the “thorough subversion of the ancestral regime,” beginning with the tyranny of Cleomenes. (IV.lxxxi).

The many Greek city-states also offers a field for considering geopolitics. The Messenians live between the more powerful Arcadians and Spartans. Because the Spartans “have always been their implacable enemies” they have allied themselves with the genial, virtuous Arcadians (IV.xxxii). “Whenever the Spartans were distracted by internal or external warfare, the Messenians were all right,” but “whenever the Spartans had time on their hands and nothing better to do, they fell back on injuring the Messenians” (IV.xxxii). Polybius recommends that the Messenians federate with the equally beleaguered Megalopolitans, which would give each polis the strength to resist military incursions.

After several more assassinations of democrats, the Spartan monarchists restored their preferred regime and made open alliance with the Aetolians. The Social War began. Macedon’s Philip (only seventeen years old when the war began) faced a geopolitical complication. At the same time the Greeks were preparing for war to his south, to his northeast the Rhodians attacked Byzantium, the gateway to the Black Sea, where Greeks traded for livestock, slaves, and luxury items. Thus “the people of Byzantium are the benefactors of all of us in common,” protecting Greek shipping from ever-encroaching barbarian chieftains (especially the Thracians) and properly expecting united Greek assistance “whenever the barbarian menace becomes critical,” as indeed it did when the equally barbaric Gauls arrived on the scene (IV.xxxviii). But the Greeks, preoccupied with their own struggles, ignored their pleas for help; desperate for revenues need to fund their resistance to the barbarians, the Byzantines put a tax on Black Sea shipping. “the affronted traders unanimously turned for help to the Rhodians, who were considered to be pre-eminent at sea” (IV.xlvii). 

Both sides brought in allies. The Rhodians successfully appealed to Prusias I, king of Bithynia, who coveted Byzantine territory in Asia Minor. The Byzantines sent embassies to Attalus I, king of Pergamon, a Greek polis in Asia Minor, and to Achaeus, the military commander of Asia Minor, who had been appointed by the Greek Seleucid emperor, Antiochus III. Intimidated by the Byzantine alliance system, the Rhodians and Bithynians quickly made peace with Byzantium, so long as the Byzantines agreed not to tax Black Sea shipping. This freed Philip to turn his full attention to the south, to the Aetolians.

Reaching Olympia, he sacrificed to the god before proceeding to Elis, an important ally of the Aetolians. The Elean regime consisted of an assembly that took care to serve the interests of the farmers, obviating the farmers’ need to participate in politics; on the other hand, the courts remained local, so that justice was readily preserved in the countryside as well as in the city. “It seems to me that all these measures and regulations, which were put in place long ago, owe their existence not just to the size of the territory, but above all to the sacrosanct life they once led”; “because of the Olympic Games, their land was to be sacrosanct and unviolated, so that they never knew fear or warfare” (IV.lxxiii). By the time of Philip’s invasion, however, they had changed their regime. Responding to territorial aggression from the Arcadians, “they were forced to defend their and change their way of life,” attempting to defend themselves without waiting for assistance from the other Greeks (IV.lxxiv). After that crisis, “they stayed with the status quo, which I think was misguided of them, and showed a distinct lack of forethought. What is it, after all, that all men pray that the gods will grant them? What is that we desire so much that we are prepared to endure anything to get it? What is it that is the only unquestionable good among all the things that men consider good? It is peace.” (IV.lxxiv). To the objection that a return to their pacific ways “would make them vulnerable to attack by an enemy who deliberately set out to make war on them, despite their sacred inviolability”—as the Aetolians had done—Polybius judges this “unlikely to happen” with forces sufficient to destroy the polis itself (IV.lxxiv). For such “minor acts of aggression” as that of the Arcadians, they could hire auxiliaries or mercenaries (IV.lxxiv). “But as things stand at the moment, they embroil themselves and their land in war after destructive war out of fear of a rare and unlikely occurrence” (IV.lxxiv). Their alliance with the Aetolians and the Spartans is a case in point. Warlike in their policy but peaceful in their way of life, they quickly succumbed to the experienced soldiers of Macedon, who captured some 5,000 prisoners and a huge quantity of spoils from this large, prosperous, yet inadequately defended polis.

In later years, Philip would turn tyrant. But in his youth, he readily “won friends throughout the Peloponnese” (IV.lxxvii). “It is hard to think of a king who was more richly endowed with the temperament necessary for the possession of power. He was outstandingly quick-witted, had an exceptional memory, and was extremely charismatic; he had the majesty and authority you would expect of a king; and above all he was an able and courageous soldier” (IV.lxxvii). His main difficulty during this campaign issued from the ambitions of his ambitious officer, Apelles, who pushed for a long-term strategy of subjugating the Achaeans, not the Aetolians. Apelles accused another officer, Aratus, of disloyalty. However, Philip weighed the evidence carefully and discovered the fraud. He kept Apelles in his entourage while now favoring Aratus. Undaunted, Apelles continued his attempts to aggrandize himself and undermine his rivals. He even began to interfere with the conduct of the war.

Seeing firsthand the geography of Greece, with its innumerable inlets and bays, Philip decided to “make the sea the main theater of war,” which would enable him to transport his army more rapidly—effectively turning them into ‘marines’ who could disembark to attack key poleis ruled by the enemy (V.i). As it happened, the Macedonians “were not only superb fighters in formal land battles, but they were also perfectly ready to serve at sea in an emergency” (V.i). 

In what may have been a hint of the underlying tyrannical cast of his soul, Philip violated the rules of war at the city of Thermum, where he burnt buildings associated with divine worship and toppled some 2,000 statues of the gods. Philip and his officers “were convinced that what they were doing was just and fitting”—retaliation for the Aetolians “sacrilegious crimes” elsewhere (V.ix). Polybius strongly disagrees. When Antigonous Doson overthrew the tyrant Cleomenes, he restored (however temporarily, as things turned out) the ancient regime of the Spartans “and their liberty” (V.ix); when Philip II, “the man who originally made Macedon great and first gave his house its high dignity,” defeated the Athenians in the battle of Chaeronea, “he achieved more through equity and kindness than he had through force of arms” (V.x). “Warfare and military might have brought him only the defeat and subjugation of his immediate opponents, but thanks to his tact and fairness he gained the submission of the entire population of Athens and the surrender of the city (V.x). He did not prolong the war out of anger, but fought and strived for victory only until it won him the opportunity to demonstrate his leniency and generosity”; indeed, “his magnanimity,” his greatness of soul, “cowed Athenian pride and changed them from enemies to willing allies in all his ventures” (V.x). Even his son, Alexander, while angrily razing Thebes to the ground and selling the Thebans into slavery, “never forgot the respect and reverence due to the gods” and left their temples and statues intact” (V.x). With such examples before him, Philip V “should have shown himself to have inherited and taken over from these men not just their throne, but, more importantly, their principles and magnanimity”; instead, “he never made the slightest effort to imitate them,” letting “anger get the better of him and act[ing] just as impiously as the Aetolians” (V.xi). “Even in wartime gratuitous damage to temples and statues and other works of art,” “valuable works that had been made with great skill from costly materials” (V.ix)—when “there is not the slightest chance that this will either help one’s own cause or weaken the enemy, is a sure sign of a fanatic in a rage” (V.xi).

“After all, a good man does not make war on wrongdoers to destroy and annihilate them, but to improve them and correct the error of their ways. And rather than eliminate the guiltless along with the guilty, he spares and saves both those whom he judges to have done wrong and those who are innocent. For injuring peoples and using fear to rule them against their will are sure signs of tyranny, but benefiting everyone, and leading and ruling people with their consent, are the marks of a king. Hating their subjects, tyrants become objects of hatred, whereas kings are loved for their benevolence and clemency.” (V.xi). Polybius ventures what we now call a ‘counterfactual’: “The best way to understand Philip’s mistake is to imagine what the Aetolians would probably have thought of him if he had done the opposite” (V.xi). “I am sure they would have regarded him as a man of the greatest integrity and clemency,” admirable for “the kingly and magnanimous way in which he demonstrated his piety towards the gods and restrained his anger towards them,” in contrast to the shameful behavior of the Aetolian League after their recent conquests (V.xi). Polybius thinks so for three reasons: “first, from the loser’s perspective, it is the difference between yielding of his own free will and yielding because he has no choice”; “second, for the victor, chastising the enemy by force of arms comes at a high price, whereas getting the enemy to see the error of his ways by the other method costs nothing”; “third, and most importantly, victory on the battlefield is due largely to subordinates, whereas the other kind of victory is due wholly to the commanding officer” (V.xii).

All this notwithstanding, Philip proved eminently capable as a warrior if not as a statesman, surprising the Spartans by rapidly advancing his troops by sea and by land. In the meantime, the officers who had been conspiring against him understood that their plot was detected and either killed themselves or died by execution. Leaving the outcome of Philip’s Grecian foray in suspense, Polybius turns to the war in Asia—specifically, the conflict over control of Coele Syria between the Seleucid emperor, Antiochus III, and Ptolomy IV of Egypt.

Ptolemy had inherited rule over Egypt. The country was secure; the young king became complacent, inattentive, decadent. His father and grandfather had paid close attention to foreign policy. “It was their possession of Coele Syria and Cyprus that had enabled them to threaten the kings of Syria on land and sea; their mastery of the most notable cities, regions, and ports along the entire coastline from Pamphylia to the Hellespont and the district of Lysimacheia had allowed them to influence the Asiatic princelings and the islands as well; and their possession of Aenus, Maroneia, and even more remote cities had enabled them also to watch over Thrace and Macedon” (V.xxxiv). Using these provinces as buffers and lookout stations against all possible rivals, they governed them assiduously. “But the administration of all these foreign possessions was a matter of indifference to Ptolemy IV, who was distracted by unsuitable love affairs and stupefied by non-stop carousing” (V.xxxiv). 

The first foreigner to take advantage of this was Cleomenes of Sparta, exiled to Egypt after his dethronement. He petitioned to be placed at the head of an expeditionary force, so that he could return to Greece and the fight in the war. Although Ptolemy didn’t care, his head of state, Sosibius, and the Egyptian royal council worried that Cleomenes might succeed all too well, conquer all of Greece and return to threaten Egypt. They denied Cleomenes’ petition, but he escaped house arrest.

Meanwhile, to the east of Egypt, the Seleucid empire had descended into civil war. The emperor, Antiochus, had assigned the governorship of Asia Minor to Achaeus, his inland province of Media to Molon and the satrap of Persis to Molon’s brother, Alexander. The brothers promptly raised a rebellion against the fifteen-year-old emperor, expecting little trouble from him but fearing the new head of state, Hermias, “a cruel and devious man” (V.xli). Hermias’ rival at court was Epigenes, who had proven himself a capable military commander and orator; “Hermias patiently bided his time, always waiting for an opportunity and excuse to bring Epigenes down” (V.xli). When Epigenes urged the emperor to put down the rebellion at once, accompanying the Egyptian troops, Hermias charged him with scheming to get the boy killed. Epigenes chose to overlook this accusation, putting it down to “an ill-timed fit of anger, rather than true hostility” (V.xlii). Epigenes’ real intention was indeed to make the emperor “busy with military service and constantly surrounded with danger” not to get him killed but to toughen him up, make him understand that the world is too dangerous to be ignored (V.xlii). 

With rich and sizeable Media under his rule and a solid alliance with his brother, Molon looked forward to the war with confidence. “All the inhabitants of Asia were absolutely terrified of him and he seemed unstoppable” (V.xlv). He defeated the Seleucid forces. The nonplussed Antiochus turned to Epigenes for advice. When Epigenes urged the emperor to continue the fight, Hermias again staged a tantrum, again in vain. But when the army nearly mutinied over the issue of back pay, Hermias offered to pay them out of his own pocket in exchange for the exclusion of Epigenes from the campaign. The emperor reluctantly agreed. Soon after, Hermias framed his rival and prevailed upon the emperor to execute him. Hermias now had every reason to suppose he could control the emperor. But when half of Molon’s troops betrayed their commander and went over to Antiochus, Molon committed suicide, fearing “the torture he would endure if he were captured alive” (V.liv). Antiochus could now do no more than crucify his corpse and gave the governorship of Media to a loyalist, Diogenes. This vindicated the war policy of the late Epigenes and discredited scheming Hermias. So, for good measure, the emperor’s courtiers assassinated Hermias; more, the women stoned his wife to death and “the children did the same for his sons” (V.lvi). 

Freed from the crisis in the interior provinces, Antiochus turned his attention to Coele Syria. On advice of his physician-counselor Apollophanes, who had warned him of Hermias’ perfidy, he first took the opportunity to seize Seleucia Pieria from Ptolemy, since that city in Egyptian hands would have hindered any operations in Syria. In 218, the war over Coele Syria began. Antiochus counted on Ptolemy’s disinclination “to assent on a decisive battle” (V.lxvi). He didn’t understand the character of Sosibius, Ptolemy’s head of state. Negotiations ensued, with each side claiming rightful rulership over the region, but Sosibius was already “completely committed to war,” and used the truce to ready the Egyptian forces (V.lxvii). Egypt had already allied with Achaeus, the Seleucid governor of Asia Minor, so Antiochus too steeled himself for the fight. He lost, at Rapha, in 217, then sued for peace. 

In Greece, the previous year, Philip, poised to beset Sparta, received a letter notifying him of Carthage’s defeat of Rome at Etruria. He shared the information with a close adviser, Demetrius of Pharos, who recommended a change of course. Instead of continuing his campaign in Greece, Philip should quickly make peace with the Aetolians, subdue Illyria and invade Italy. “All Greece,” Demetrius said, “was already subject to him, and that situation would last, now that the Achaeans had chosen to ally themselves with him and the Aetolians were struggling to recover from the war. But Italy was the first step to world conquest, which was his exclusive right”—as a direct descendant of Alexander the Great—and “there was no better time to invade Italy than now, when the Romans were down and out” (V.cii). “Young, fortunate in war, and known for his daring,” Philip was “seduced by Demetrius’ suggestion” (V.cii). For their part, the Aetolians proved as eager for peace as was Philip for conquest. The treaty conference “was the first occasion when Greek, Italian, and Libyan affairs became interconnected. From then on, the point of reference when Philip and the Greek leaders were deciding on war or peace with one another was no longer what was happening in Greece; everyone’s eyes were turned instead towards Italy and the intentions of people there” (cvi). For their part, the Romans became “concerned about just how far Philip would go,” and began to send out feelers to the Greeks (V.cvi).

As planned, Philip invaded and conquered Illyria, further worrying the Romans. But of course their main concern was Hannibal, who had just defeated them at Cannae. “That was how things stood in Greece and Asia” (V.cx). Polybius will now pause to consider the Roman regime.

He has already shown the radical difference between republicanism and monarchy. Whether in Egypt, the Seleucid empire, Macedon, or Sparta, monarchic rule depends squarely not only on the character of ‘the one’ ruler but on the intrigues undertaken by those around him. Whether it is Hermias in the Seleucid court or Demetrius whispering into Philip’s ear, monarchs are prey to their confidants. Republics may be to faction what air is to fire but factionalism inflames monarchies, too, although it is restricted to a very small circle.  

In addition to the problems inherent in regimes, Polybius sees those inherent in size. Small political societies, city-states, find themselves continually threatened by their larger neighbors. But empires are threatened not only by rival empires but by ambitious provincial governors with eyes on the emperor’s throne. Given his elaboration of such dilemmas, Polybius’ turn to the Roman regime is quite logical

 

 

 

 

Note

1. The most famous example was the German end-around France’s fortified Maginot Line in 1940; decades later, United States troops demonstrated the same tactics in their two wars in Iraq. The French had been warned by a then-obscure army officer, Charles de Gaulle, whose 1934 book, Vers l’armée de métier argued (in vain, as it happened) for such a mobile force as a needed supplement to the defensive borderline ‘shell.’ For commentary, see Will Morrisey: Reflections on De Gaulle: Political Founding in Modernity (Lanham: University Press of America, second edition, 2002).