Polybius Was a Distinguished Green

Polybius was a distinguished Green Historian during the Hellenistic Period (Walbank, 2002).He is noted for his work titles "The Histories" which covered major historical events that took place between 220 and 146 BC. In this paper we explore the impact of Polybius as a historian, his contribution to the establishment of the U.S. constitution and how his military thinking played a role in Roman conquest. From this review and analysis it is important to note that Polybius greatly influenced the American and global democracy by being one of the people from whose account the principle of separation of powers was derived. He is also an important authority on historical integrity. His role in the Roman conquest is also notable.

Introduction

Polybius was a distinguished Green Historian during the Hellenistic Period (Walbank, 2002).He is noted for his work titles "The Histories" which covered major historical events that took place between 220 and 146 BC. This particular work partially described the rise of the then Roman republic as well as gradual domination over by Greece. The author is also known for his ideas regarding separation of powers in the government, as well as the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Polybius was born in 200 BC in Acardia by Lycortas, a prominent Greek politician who later on became the Cavalry Commander in the then existing Achaean League (Magil & Moose, 2003, p.886).In this paper we explore the impact of Polybius as a historian, his contribution to the establishment of the U.S. constitution and how his military thinking played a role in Roman conquest.

The impact of Polybius as a historian

Polybius work as a historian is remarkable. His work on the subject of Roman history is quite detailed. Polybius's work titled "The Histories" provides a very detailed account of the accent of Rome to be an empire with an inclusion of an eyewitness account of the evens during the Sack of Carthage even in the year 146 BC. Polybius is noted to have said that historian should just chronicle events whose actual participants the given historians were able to interview. This means that he was one of the very first historians to demand accountability, factual accuracy as well as integrity in documented historical accounts. He was also one of the very first historians to champion for the need of factual integrity in the written historical literature so as to avoid bias.

While summarizing the contribution of Polybius on the study of Roman history, the work of Davidson (1991, p.10) noted that several authors have presented various opinions on Polybius' ideologies, omission, bias, methods and concerns. The work of Tarn (1927) compared the work of Polybius to dispatches and rescripts. This is because according to his opinion, the work of Polybius appeared as if he was only interested in a rather unobtrusive recording role. Harris (1979) noted that the work of Polybius on Roman Imperialism can be viewed to be a much more closer/realistic account of the process that any other 20th century historians. Polybius was therefore very honest and at the same time reliable with his work on Roman history (Davidson, 1991, p.10).

Polybius' contribution to the establishment of the U.S. constitution

The contribution of Polybius to the establishment of the U.S. constitution is well documented. His work on the separation of powers is indicated to have immensely influenced the U.S. Founding Fathers (Lloyd,1998). His work can therefore be regarded as one aspect of classical contributions to the U.S. constitution (Bederman,2008).The concept of separation of powers concerns the need for having separate and very distinct legislative, executive as well as judicial branches of a given government. This is one of the central features of the U.S. Constitution. Through this process of separation of powers, each of the braches work according to their own authority thereby leading to the formation of checks and balances against various forms of abuse of power by any of the remaining one or two branches (Rossiter,1987).This feature was mainly credited to James Madison, a Founding Father (Hamilton, Jay & Madison,1788).