Polybius

Greek historian

• Born: c. 200 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Megalopolis, Arcadia, Greece
• Died: c. 118 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Greece

Through the advancement of sound historiographic methods, Polybius contributed to the development of history as a significant area of inquiry having primarily a didactic rationale.

Early Life

Polybius (puh-LIHB-ee-uhs) was born about 200 b.c.e. in Megalopolis, Arcadia, in Greece. He was the son of Lycortas, a prominent Achaean diplomat and political leader; nothing is known of Polybius’s mother. His family’s wealth was based on extensive and productive land holdings. During his youth Polybius developed an interest in biography, history, and military topics. He wrote a biography of Philopoenen, a legendary leader in Arcadia, and a military treatise, Tactics, which has not survived. As a young nobleman, Polybius complied with the expectation that he be trained as a warrior in order to support the policies of the Achaean League.

At the age of twenty, Polybius was named a hipparch, a commander of cavalry, in the army of the league, and he remained in that position for a decade. Shortly after 170, the fragile tranquillity of the Greek world was disrupted by the Roman war against Perseus of Macedonia. Amid this crisis, which saw a heightened Roman distrust of the various Greek states, Polybius declared his support for the Romans and offered his cavalry to assist the Roman forces, which were under the leadership of Quintus Marcius Philippus. Not only did the Romans not accept Polybius’s offer of support, which was a result of their lack of trust, but they also seized him and about a thousand other Achaeans and transported them to Italy. This episode marked a transformation in the life and work of Polybius.

Life’s Work

On arriving in Rome, Polybius came under the protection of Scipio Aemilianus, a prominent Roman general who had befriended the exiled Achaean. Polybius traveled with Scipio to Spain, Africa, and southern France; they witnessed the destruction of Carthage in 146 at the close of the Third Punic War. In the same year, Polybius was in Corinth, which had been destroyed by the Romans. He exhibited effective diplomatic skills as he arranged an end to hostilities and a reasonable settlement for the Achaeans.

Throughout his travels and contacts with the Romans, Polybius developed his interest in history and formulated a plan to write a history of the emergence of Rome to a position of hegemony in the Mediterranean world. At first, he intended to conclude his work in 168 with the victory of the Romans over Perseus in the Battle of Pydna. He later decided, however, to continue the history through to the fall of Carthage and Corinth in 146. It appears that his history was published in forty books; although only the first five books have survived intact, fragments and collaborative evidence provide considerable information on the remaining thirty-five books.

In his work The Histories (English translation, 1889), Polybius clarified and expanded the role of the historian and the importance of the study of history. He maintained that historians must be familiar with the geography of the regions they cover, knowledgeable about the practice of politics, and informed of the appropriate documentary sources relating to their topics. Polybius viewed history as an analysis of political developments that would better equip leaders to increase political wisdom.

He advanced a philosophy of history that was based on the frequency of constitutional changes or revolutions in societies and cultures. Polybius argued that in the earliest years of a society’s history, people banded together and designated a leader whose primary purpose was to provide protection for the group; the consequence of this action was the appearance of despotism. As the society expanded and the concept of law emerged, the despotism was transformed into monarchy, which eventually led to tyranny and an aristocratic reaction. The aristocratic regime yielded to oligarchy, which was then replaced by democracy. The democracy survived for a few generations until the memory of the oligarchy passed and democracy was corrupted to mob rule, during which the conditions that first resulted in the emergence of despotism were re-created. A despot would again seize power, and the politically oriented and driven process would resume. Polybius argued that Rome would be exempt from the processes of decay because of the fluid nature of the constitution of the Roman Republic.

In collecting his sources, Polybius exercised a thoroughness and discrimination that were revolutionary in the study of history. He relied heavily on the use of oral testimony; indeed, he structured the chronological limits of his study so that he could emphasize the material that he gathered from oral sources. These sources could be used as collaborative evidence and were capable of being verified. In addition to oral history, Polybius had access to and made use of a wide range of written sources. From Achaean and Roman official records to earlier histories, Polybius effectively used all the available sources.

The Histories constitute an apologia, an explanation for the emergence of Rome as the leader of the Mediterranean world. Polybius contended that Rome deserved its preeminent position because the Roman leaders and people had developed a progressive political system. The other Mediterranean peoples, Polybius believed, did not possess the realistic political worldview of the Romans and, as a consequence, lost their independence. In the development of this notion as well as others, Polybius demonstrated his concern with causation. On several occasions he discussed the concept of cause and effect and noted contrasts between the larger causes of a development and the immediate activities that resulted in it. It should be noted, however, that Polybius also ascribed to Tyche (the Greek goddess of chance) developments that were inexplicable. Throughout his writings Polybius repeated that history should be instructive,

for it is by applying analogies to our own circumstances that we get the means and basis for calculating the future; and for learning from the past when to act with caution, and when with greater boldness, in the present.

Polybius repudiated partisan histories, such as the writings of Timaeus, the Greek antiquarian, and warned against the worthlessness of deliberately biased works. He was interested in determining the truth and, once it was determined, learning from it.

Both in his own time and in subsequent generations, critics noted the shortcomings of Polybius’s style, which in many ways appears to have been as tedious as modern bureaucratic English. Polybius was repetitious, exercised a penchant for ambiguity, and developed his arguments in such an indirect fashion that his principal points were frequently submerged. Nevertheless, Polybius, along with Herodotus and Thucydides, raised the study and writing of history to a new level of serious inquiry. Polybius’s emphasis on proper methodology, his vision of a universal political historical process, and his advocacy of history as a didactic art resulted in the enhancement of the Greco-Roman historical tradition. Polybius allegedly died at about the age of eighty-two in approximately 118 in Greece, as a result of injuries suffered when he was thrown from a horse.

Significance

While Polybius was a leading Achaean during his lifetime and used his abilities and connections to develop an accommodation with Rome for his native Arcadia, his more significant legacy consisted of his contributions to the development of the study and writing of history. In the tradition of the earlier Greek historians Herodotus and Thucydides, Polybius considered the multitude of issues relating to historical methodology and developed an expanded notion of historical evidence. His use of oral history and his approach to collaborative evidence were significant contributions to his craft. Polybius’s methodology and his concept of history influenced Roman historians such as Livy and Tacitus.

While much of The Histories of Polybius has been lost, the first five books provide the reader with more than a glimpse of Roman history at a time when the Mediterranean world was in a state of crisis. In this context, Polybius’s contributions to the study of constitutions and political cycles should be emphasized. His thesis on the progression from despotism to monarchy to tyranny to aristocracy and then on to democracy and the return to despotism via mob rule not only advanced a historical analysis but also provided a framework for the discussion of constitutionalism.

Bibliography

Breisach, Ernst. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Breisach discusses Polybius’s work in the context of early Roman historiography, emphasizing his concept of political history. The author also provides a schema for Polybius’s cycle of constitutional revolutions. This work constitutes one of the best single-volume reviews of historiography available. Includes an excellent bibliography.

Magie, D. Roman Rule in Asia Minor. New York: Arno Press, 1975. An excellent introduction to the expansion of Rome in the eastern Mediterranean, this volume provides a valuable insight into the world and writing of Polybius.

Scullard, H. H. Scipio Africanus in the Second Punic War. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1930. A classic study of the Second Punic War and the emergence of Rome as the major power in the Mediterranean region. This book provides an excellent examination of Roman policy at the end of the third century.

Walbank, Frank A. A Historical Commentary on Polybius. 3 vols. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1967-1979. This is the preeminent scholarly study of Polybius by one of the major classical scholars of the twentieth century. The work includes extensive details on Polybius, textual commentary, and criticism on The Histories.

Walbank, Frank A. Polybius, Rome, and the Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Walbank’s volume, which treats the life of Polybius and his work stands as a significant contribution to biography and historiography as well as to the study of this particular historian. The work is well documented and includes a useful bibliography.