Polybius Theory of Government

A Greek historian named Polybius, who was evident during the Hellenistic Period, believed that different forms of government went through an inevitable cycle that focused around three “good” forms of government known as a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a democracy and three “bad” forms of government, which were an autocracy (dictatorship), an oligarchy, and an ochlocracy. Polybius believed that a monarchy, which would be ruled by one powerful and strong leader, would then turn into an autocracy or dictatorship, which would obtain a man that upheld too much power and control over the government. The people would then become dissatisfied and would revolt against this dictatorship turning it into an aristocracy, which would be a small group of people chosen to rule the government. However, eventually this would turn into an oligarchy, where the few elites would gain too much power and control over the government. Once again, people would revolt against this government arguing that the few would be obtaining too much power, and would demand more people control the government turning it into a democracy. However, once again these chosen people would gain too much power and the government would turn into an ochlocracy, where the many would rule, but with too much control.

Polybius argued that this cycle would continuously repeat and that the best form of government would be a mixed government, where all aspects of these governments would exist. The U.S. took after this vision when creating our government structure, considering that when one really examines how the U.S. government runs, it does create all these aspects. The Senate is, in a sense, a version of an aristocracy, where the chosen few can rule, considering that the Senate only holds one hundred people. The House of Representatives is more like a Democracy, where more can rule, and is much bigger in size with four hundred thirty-five Representatives. The President is really like the dictator of the country, however, he doesn’t obtain the power of the usual dictator, but does stand as the face of our country. The Constitution took after Polybius’ view of how the Roman Republic should work, where power is distributed among multiple institutions.

I found this very interesting. Especially since, we as a class, have talked about the resemblance in structure of buildings from the Romans and the buildings in Washington, D.C. It was interesting to find that our structure of government was also passed down from Roman thinkers, including Polybius and his vision of a successful government.

http://republicoflagrangia.org/2014/10/30/polybius-on-forms-of-government/