This blog was researched and written by Visualising War and Peace student Elizabeth Walker; School of Classics, University of St Andrews, November 2023. It discusses Polybius’ synthesising, universalising approach to narrating war in his Histories.
From the outset of his Histories, Polybius sets out the end goal of his work – to understand the growth of Roman imperial power:
For who is so worthless or indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government — a thing unique in history? (1.1.5)
Polybius explains how the Romans’ have achieved this unrivalled hegemony, examining the different wars and conflicts that have facilitated the growth of this power as the substance of his discussion. Yet importantly, Polybius seeks to establish a fool proof way of uncovering this question and a reliable means of examining his material critically. In his eyes, this is done through a history with a stalwart theory that underpins it. As such, Polybius’ approach is consciously programmatic; he continually reemphasises and redefines certain conceptual frameworks which are intended to elucidate understanding of the multitude of wars, reflecting a concern with how to conceive of the enormous and unprecedented change the Romanisation of the world had brought about. This blog will explore how Polybius’ form of historiographic approach creates a particular understanding of war within his narrative, one that perhaps seeks and holds claim to being analytical and comprehensive in its analysis, but in fact demands a need for cohesion and explanatory rationality. This brushes over the more difficult aspects of war or provides generalised explanations for inconceivable phenomena. The relationship between Polybius’ historiography and war will therefore be examined through pertinent selections of his programmatic passages.
In the first of the two most significant programmatic passages (at the beginning of book 1 and 3 respectfully) Polybius makes clear that a significant overall purpose for his work is its practical application. Almost immediately in the introduction to the first book he incites his readers to recognise the practical value encoded in his work:
The soundest education and training for a life of active politics is the study of History, and that surest and indeed the only method of learning how to bear bravely the vicissitudes of fortune, is to recall the calamities of others. (1.1.2)
Whilst Polybius’ writing is not formulated with the same intention for instructive assistance for war as the exempla tradition in the military manuals of Frontinus, for example, he certainly makes clear that the reader’s examination of his subject matter (a discourse of war) is inherently didactic, and furthermore, relevant for the rather vaguely stated navigation of life more generally. Scholars debate whether Polybius intended a practical or moral teaching to be read in his material.[i] Yet this seems a somewhat irrelevant particularity, since predominantly, any claim to didacticism aids prestige to Polybius’ project, stretching it beyond an academic exercise, and makes his work appeal to be read by a cross-section of readership groups. Polybius is appealing for its relevance to any elite man, not just politicians and those with military aspirations.[ii] Furthermore, this appeal continues a notion witnessed in different writings across antiquity, that war is a phenomenon to be consumed by the reader. War as a concept held intellectual fascination for the ancient elite man, perceived as offering up an inexhaustible richness in what it could say about the elusive idea of ‘human nature’ more broadly, something which Polybius connects war as providing observations on consistently through his Histories.[iii] Additionally, the fact that the ‘calamities of others’ is specifically mentioned suggests that ‘failure’ of wars should be of particular curiosity for Polybius’ reader. This reduction of the end of conflicts glosses over the impact of the aftermath and fallout of war, specifically the profound, widespread long-lasting repercussions that impact human lives. It implies that these cataclysmic reverberations of war can almost be made meaningful if they help Polybius’ reader ‘bear bravely the vicissitudes of fortune’. War is reduced to simply a cerebral concept to be utilised for self-development.
Additionally in this first programmatic statement in Book 1, specifically 1.4.7-11, Polybius lays out a clear intent to actively re-visualise wars of the past in a purposefully cohesive manner:
He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace. For could anyone put the creature together on the spot, restoring its form and the comeliness of life, and then show it to the same man, I think he would quickly avow that he was formerly very far away from the truth and more like one in a dream. For we can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never knowledge or exact opinion. Special histories therefore contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its truth. It is only indeed by study of the interconnexion of all the particulars, their resemblances, and differences, that we are enabled at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure from history. (1.4.7-11)
Polybius uses a metaphor of an animal’s body as an ideologically poignant image by which he demonstrates how he perceives an adequate grasp of history can be attained. Polybius is inviting the reader to literally look at the substance of his text – wars – as constituent parts of a dead animal’s body that are incomplete in isolation, and only ‘alive’ once put together. It is notable that the Roman state was often conceived of as a ‘body’ by other writers, such as Cicero, with the idea of a defective body particularly being employed as a metaphor for political dysfunctionality.[iv] Therefore, Polybius is perhaps interreacting with Roman imperialistic discourses, suggesting that the sum of wars produce meaning when under an imperial project. Moreover, as Wiater argues, Polybius is attributing aesthetic beauty and completeness to his own particular historical understanding of wars, emphasised that there is intellectual life in them when collated together.[v] The imagery is certainly impactful and works effectively to portray individual wars (equivalent to dissected limbs) as holding more desirable value when they are synthesized together in a single conceptual understanding. Whilst this initially seems to encourage a generalising approach to the complexities of war, Tully argues that it is not reductive, offering that ‘Polybius is not detracting value from knowledge of single events and wars but emphasising the need for “overarching synthesis”’.[vi] This interpretation recognises what Polybius intends, but the superimposition of a synthetic agenda is inherently not a neutral reproduction. Polybius’ overall aim for cohesion creates an environment that seeks to fit individual experiences of war into an overarching pre-established interpretation of what war is and retrospectively can be used for. This framework of understanding creates literary conditions which can swerve towards disregarding certain nuances that do not ‘fit’ or glossing over the ‘unexplainable’. In this way, for example, it has been argued by Walbank that Polybius at times resorts to the allusive concept of tychē (fortune) as a governing force for difficult explanations of war.[vii] Whilst this is perhaps an overly critical interpretation of Polybius’ work (since he is highly invested in human causation[viii]), there is definitely an argument that Polybius’ schematic approach provides an apt environment for overemphasising similarities between wars to provide a summative interpretation, inevitably overlooking differences and nuance. However, L.V. Pitcher particularly rebuts this, arguing that Polybius was highly aware of the complexity involved in the representation of war in the genre of history, wrestling with ‘methodological anxieties’.[ix] Whilst Pitcher’s analysis is valid in attributing some awareness of nuance to Polybius, it does not address the fact that Polybius, in his employment of historiographic frameworks, is actively transforming and reconstructing wars to give them a new meaning altogether.
Therefore, returning to the metaphor, it also illustrates the very paradox that comes with viewing war through a historical lens: the animal is indeed unable to be restored to life – the only way of experiencing that animal in its fullness was to see it when it was alive. As Cobley asserts ‘no discourse is able to recuperate the reals as such, different modes of representation connote reality differently’.[x] As such, whilst Polybius does not deny the limits of accessing the past, it is fascinating that in some way he views his visualisation of war as getting as close as possible to a reality. He implies his history is almost able to resurrect the body of the metaphorical animal. In fact, Polybius even believes that a deeper and more analytical perspective on war will be generated as a result of his selective historical methods. Whilst the metaphor acknowledges history as a way of visualising war, it fails to recognise the bias that comes with any literary reconstruction (let alone a retrospective one) especially of such a complex phenomenon as war.
In book 3, Polybius gives further insight into how he sees the historian and reader’s agency and role in reconstructing the wars of the past. The historian is compared to a physician:
My object has not been to censure previous writers, but to rectify the ideas of students. For of what use to the sick is a physician who is ignorant of the causes of certain conditions of the body?… [he] will scarcely be likely to recommend proper treatment for the body… (3.7.4-6)
Polybius’ students are substituted for doctors who diagnose and then treat illnesses, explicitly placing the historian not as a removed third party, but as an active and authoritative participant in a restorative, or even corrective, process. Cobley reflects that ‘the traditional historian always acts as an external and retrospective mediator whose narrative is the outcome of carefully documented source material’.[xi] However, Polybius’ idea of a historian seems to go beyond a ‘mediator’. The historian is the actor synthesizing the separate nature of the individual wars, and like a doctor, he is knowledgably initiating the dissection of his subject matter – transforming, not just observing. Likewise, Polybius does not hold neutrality; he is purposefully steering his material for a particular aim, which undeniably affects how wars are presented. He is laying out the material in a way so that a particular interpretation might be drawn – in this case, to map war onto his contemporary geopolitics and Greek self-definition. Analysing this analogy further, Polybius suggests that it is fundamental that a doctor-come-historian must draw on their pre-existing knowledge: a diagnosis cannot be done without a bedrock of accumulated expertise. Polybius openly advocates for the application of previous knowledge of wars onto other wars. Walbank argues that ‘historians have frequently been tempted to try to detect – and in practice this has usually meant being tempted to superimpose – some sort of pattern on the social and constitutional changes which constantly occur in history’.[xii] Walbank’s statement certainly rings true for Polybius. In seeing cohesion as almost synonymous with finding a ‘truth’, or rather producing the most accurate account of history and perspective on the wars themselves, he searches for a universality that does not necessarily exist. Whilst this is not an inherently invaluable exercise, it leaves little space for the ‘inarticulacy’ that might come with war. As McLoughlin says, ‘inarticulacy, like silence itself, is an ethical-aesthetic response to the challenges of conveying conflict’.[1] In Polybius’ desire to comprehend multiple wars so thoroughly as one cohesive whole, this in fact potentially leads to either a disregard for wars that don’t offer meaning or contribution to his project, absent voices and valuable perspectives being dismissed, or generalisation of factors. In this way, whilst Polybius promises a systematic depth of analysis, he often grasps at tropes for the representation of war, for example giving great significance to ‘outstanding’ men.[2] Even if Polybius grants complex analysis to them, the onus being on a singular great man plays into a tradition of conceiving the outcome of wars as being fundamentally influenced by the genius or mistakes of an individual, when the reality is much more complex. These are tropes that he has inherited from earlier storytelling traditions, not just from his synthesis of history. In other words, narratives are shaping narratives which are helping to shape reality.
Overall, much can be deduced about Polybius’ approach to war from his approach to history as a discipline. Perhaps the visualisation of cohesion that Polybius advocates for is as a way of reconciling the enormity of the military impact Rome has had on the world. The change Polybius’ world had undergone through conflict needed to be shaped into something that made sense altogether, and furthermore, converted into useful knowledge. Polybius shows no interest in questioning conflict – it is a consistent norm in his worldview, and also a convenient vehicle for a complex academic discourse that aids him prestige as a writer. Polybius’ use of rigid historiographic methods blurs out space for uncomfortable conclusions or a more affective rendering of war.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baronowski, Donald Walter. Polybius and Roman Imperialism (London: Bristol Classical Press, 2010)
Cobley, Evelyn. “Narrative Situation: Focalization and Voice” in Representing War: Form and Ideology in First World War Narratives (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993) pp. 71-117
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McGing, Brian. Polybius’ Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
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McLoughlin, Kate. ‘War and words’ in War Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) pp. 15-24
McLoughlin, Kate. Authoring War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
McLoughlin, Kate. The Cambridge Companion to War Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Miltsios, Nikos. “Introduction” In Leadership and Leaders in Polybius, IX-XVI (Berlin, Boston: DeGruyter, 2023) pp. ix-xv
Pitcher, L.V. ‘Classical war literature’ in The Cambridge Companion to War Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) pp. 71-80
Tully, John. ‘Ephorus, Polybius, and τὰ καθόλου γράφειν’ in Between Thucydides and Polybius: The Golden Age of Greek Historiography edited by Giovanni Parmeggiani (Cambridge, MA; London: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2014) pp. 163-174
Walbank, Frank. ‘Polybius and the past’ in Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp.178-192
Walbank, Frank. Polybius (Berkley, California: University of California Press, 1972)
Walters, Brain. ‘The Republican Body Politic’ in The deaths of the Republic: imagery of the body politic in Ciceronian Rome (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) pp. 7-26
Wiater, Nicolas. “Politics, Aesthetics and Historical Explanation in Polybius I.” University of St Andrews. 15 Ocotber, 2013. https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/latehellenistic/5-politics-aesthetics-and-historical-explanation-in-polybius-i/index.html
[1] McLoughlin (2010) 17.
[2] Miltsios (2023) ix.
[i] Hau (2016) 23.
[ii] Marsden (1974) 284.
[iii] Longley (2012) 69.
[iv] Walters (2020) 15.
[v] Wiater (2013).
[vi] Tully (2014) 173.
[vii] Walbank (2002) 182.
[viii] Longley (2012) 68.
[ix] Pitcher (2010) 76.
[x] Cobley (1993) 79.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Walbank (2002) 181.