page_title: The Histories (Polybius)
section_title: Polybius on government
hierarchical_section_title: The Histories (Polybius) / Polybius on government
context_page_description: Polybius’ Histories were originally written in 40 volumes, only the first five of which are extant in their entirety. The bulk of the work was passed down through collections of excerpts kept in libraries in the Byzantine Empire. Polybius, a historian from the Greek city of Megalopolis in Arcadia, was taken as a hostage to Rome after the Roman defeat of the Achaean League in Achaean War, and there he began to write an account of the rise of Rome to a world power.
  The leading expert on Polybius' work was F. W. Walbank, who published a long commentary of Polybius, as well as a biography and several studies related to him.
context_section_description: In Book VI Polybius digresses into an explanation of the Roman constitution and he shows it to be mixed. The purpose for this is involved in the Hellenistic nature of the work, particularly his Greek audience. Greeks at this time believed that the strength of a state is manifested in the strength of its constitution. The mixed constitution was touted as the strongest constitution as it combined the three integral types of government: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Polybius makes further distinction in the forms of government by including the nefarious counterparts to the ones mentioned above; tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy.  These governments, according to Polybius, cycle in a process called anacyclosis or kyklos, which begins with monarchy and ends with ochlocracy.  The Romans avoided this problem through the structure of their Republic (mixed government).
caption: The Curia Julia in the Roman Forum, the seat of the Roman Senate.
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