Craige Champion
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Warfare as Military Science in Polybius' Histories
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Abstract
This paper argues four main points: 1) Polybius does not dwell on horrors of war, the insane chaos and unpredictable nature of battle, and terrifying experiences of rank-and-file soldiers in combat. 2) Warfare primarily interests him as a rational, chess-board affair, showcasing skills or weaknesses of power elites serving as field commanders. 3) While non-Greeks, such as Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, are masters of command, military science in Polybius’ narrative is mainly the preserve of Greeks, and he stresses that outnumbered possessors of Greek λογισμός have overcome vast numbers of mindless and impulsive barbarian hordes. Romans, as honorary Greeks, can continue to do so if they will follow Polybius’ precepts. And (4), as intrusive, editorializing, first-person narrator, Polybius qua military scientist (we should remember that he wrote a lost Tactica), emerges as educator and advisor for elite Roman field generals who will read his history.
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The study of the Roman army is almost as old as the genre of Roman history itself. Polybius, writing in the middle of the second century, offered the first-and still one of the most important-studies of the Roman army of any period. Taking up 24 chapters (19-42) within Book 6 of his Histories, his description and analysis of the army of the Republic both set the stage for, and helped to shape the trajectory of, the field of Roman military studies which came after him. He is, arguably, the father of the discipline as it exists today. 1 The bulk of Polybius' discussion focuses on military praxis, organization, and equipment. He offered detailed descriptions of recruitment, marching orders, camp construction, and tactical arrangements. These topics were expanded upon in other sections, including his famous comparison of the Roman legion and Macedonian phalanx (18.28-32). His "nuts and bolts" approach to the army reveals both his familiarity with the practical details of military systems-Polybius having served as a hipparchus for the Achaean league in 170/169-and his appreciation for organization and command structures. Polybius offered an educated officer's view of the Roman military system, which presented the army as a rational and practical tool of power-a set of systems and institutions designed to maximize the effectiveness of both the armed force and the power and influence of Rome's military elite. Accordingly, his analysis has long resonated with later aristocrats and military officers-turned-authors, both from antiquity and modernity. His detailed and precise descriptions of Rome's military order offered a paradigm for well-organized operations to which later generals could both compare and aspire. His description of the army did not include the sumptuous and dramatic individual moral exempla found in an author like Livyalthough it did contain moral aspects-but represented a deeply practical and informed expression of military structures. Polybius' work did not focus on the ideal heroic warrior, but rather on the ideal army. * The authors thank Brahm Kleinman, whose suggestions improved this introduction. All dates are BC unless otherwise noted. 1 For an overview of Polybius as military historian more generally, see Marsden (1974, 295), who concluded, "…at the very least, he began the breakthrough into more advanced, even modern, military history."
New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare
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New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare brings together essays from specialists in ancient history who employ contemporary tools and approaches to reveal new evidence and increase knowledge of ancient militaries and warfare. In-depth yet highly readable, this volume covers the most recent trends for understanding warfare, militaries, soldiers, non-combatants, and their roles in ancient cultures. Chronologically-organized chapters explore new methodologies, evidence, and topics while offering fresh and original perspectives on recent documentary and archaeological discoveries. Covering the time period from Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire, the text asks questions of both new and re-examined old evidence and discusses the everyday military life of soldiers and veterans. Chapters address unique topics such as neurophysiological explanations for why some soldiers panic and others do not in the same battle, Greek society’s handling of combat trauma in returning veterans, the moral aspects and human elements of ancient sieges, medical care in the late Roman Empire, and the personal experience of military servicemembers and their families. Each chapter is self-contained to allow readers to explore topics in any order they prefer. Providing new material and topical focus, New Approaches to Greek and Roman Warfare is an ideal text for Greek History or Roman History courses, particularly those focusing on ancient warfare, as well as scholars and general readers with interest in the ancient militaries.
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D. Baronowski, POLYBIUS AND ROMAN IMPERIALISM. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011. Pp. xiv + 242. isbn 9780715639429. £50.00
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For who can be so ignorant or indolent to be uninterested by what means and under what form of government the Romans -in less than fifty-three years -have conquered almost the whole inhabited worlda deed without precedent in history? And who is there, so enflamed by other manifestations of study or spectacle, that regards anything to be of greater moment than the acquisition of this knowledge? With these words, at the start of The Histories' proem (1.1.2), Polybius presents his objectives and contents. These will be modified later when the initial chronological arc (220-167) is extended up to and beyond the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 (3.2-4). 1 But the core aim -to explain the success of Rome and its unstoppable expansion -is maintained. Polybius primarily intends to speak to a political audience, particularly that of Greek cities; this is his public. Polybius himself had played a prominent political role at home as a hipparch of the Achaean League before arriving in Rome in 167, immediately after the Battle of Pydna. His role formed the essential premise for the composition of The Histories. Starting from these assumptions, this chapter aims to show how Polybius, a Greek and one of the Achaean League's ruling elite, offered to the Greek public an interpretative picture of Rome's political experience, applying conceptual categories elaborated by Greek philosophical thought to this 'foreign' context. My argument is prompted by some recent discussion in the debate on the forms that politics took in Rome. This debate was stimulated by Anglophone scholars (starting from Millar 1998), then subsequently by those of the German school, with the fundamental contribution of Hölkeskamp 2010 (see Chapter 1; Chapter 7). In a discussion held in 2005 at the Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica on the problem of how to define Roman Republican politics in the twenty-first century , participants identified the need to recognise the peculiarity of the Roman Republican system by overcoming the dichotomy between 'aristocracy' and 'democracy', a false historiographical dilemma, which Polybius has helped to generate . With respect to these considerations, I would like to address the problem from another point of view: what are the features that unite certain political concepts,
Review of: Miltsios, N. & Tamiolaki, M. (Eds.) (2018). Polybius and his Legacy. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter. 456 + i-ix pp.
Anuario de la Escuela de Historia (Virtual), N° 16, 2019
It is a review of a recently published book on Polybius.
Academic Science and Warfare in the Classical World
T. Bekker-Nielsen & L Hannestad (eds), War as a Cultural and Social Force: Essays on Warfare in Antiquity. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences., 2001
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Aelianus Tacticus: A phalanx of problems. – C. Matthew, rev., trans., ed., The Tactics of Aelian, or On the Military Arrangements of the Greeks: A New Translation of the Manual That Influenced Warfare for Fifteen Centuries
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