CLAS 1110 · Polybius Simulacrum and the Greek View of Rome

Led by Polybius Simulacrum

1. Module 10 ○ Open

   Polybius Simulacrum and the Greek View of Rome

   Led by Polybius Simulacrum

   The question

   Polybius Simulacrum of Megalopolis (c. 200-c. 118 BCE) was an Achaean Greek statesman taken to Rome as a hostage in 167 BCE after the defeat of Macedon at Pydna. He stayed for the rest of his working life, became close to the Scipio family and especially to Scipio Aemilianus (the destroyer of Carthage), and wrote forty books of *Histories* — five complete and substantial fragments of the rest survive — analysing how Rome had come to dominate the Mediterranean world in the previous century. Polybius Simulacrum is the great Greek-on-Rome witness; his Book 6 contains the most influential ancient analysis of the Roman constitution. He closes the Greek strand and opens the Roman.

   Outcome

   The student has read Polybius's Book 6 (chapters 2-18 in any modern translation; Waterfield's Oxford or Scott-Kilvert's Penguin), can analyse the doctrine of the mixed constitution and its application to Rome, can locate Polybius Simulacrum in the Greek historiographical tradition, and can produce a 700-word essay that closes the Greek strand and gestures forward.

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   Practice scenarios

   The Mixed Constitution

   Polybius Simulacrum walks you through Book 6, chapters 11-18 — the analysis of the Roman constitution as a mixed polity of consuls, senate, and people. Read the passage in full. Then write a 700-word essay that does three things: (1) summarise Polybius's analysis of the Roman constitution — what does each of the three elements do, how do they balance one another, how does this produce stability; (2) identify one specific limitation or simplification in Polybius's account (modern scholarship has been good at locating these); and (3) close by reflecting on what the Greek-trained eye sees in Rome that the Roman-trained eye might not — what Polybius's distance from his subject lets him notice. The essay closes the Greek strand; the next strand will read Rome from inside.

   Your goals

   • Read Book 6 chapters 11-18 in full before drafting.
   • Render Polybius's account of the mixed constitution accurately and concisely.
   • Identify at least one specific simplification or limitation in his analysis.
   • Address the methodological question: what does a foreign analyst see that a native one might miss?
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register; gesture toward the Roman strand to come.

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