HKB
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Often appears with: forms of government · diplomacy and embassies · strategy and the aims of war · military discipline and training · faction, party, and civil strife · conquest, plunder, and captives · civil war and rebellion · empire and the rule of provinces · aratus · temperance and self-mastery · strategus · sparta dispute
Usually: narrative (7) · argument (5) · the fall of the great (4) · detachment (4) · skepticism (4) · censure (3) · ambition and its cost (2) · injustice endured (2) · the stranger's arrival (2) · grief and loss (1)
He notes that the “legislation for states” principle has produced civil war or anarchy in historical confederacies, and that enforcing it would require constant force or end in dissolution.
To the People of the State of New York: THE tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or communities, in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind, of which we have any account, in exact proportion to its prevalence in those systems. The confirmations of th…
Continuing with Greek examples, Madison explains how the Achaean League’s federal institutions moderated conflict but still succumbed to Macedonian manipulation and later Roman interference.
had a great share in its deliberations, when assembled. According to the primitive constitution, there were two praetors associated in the administration; but on trial a single one was preferred. It appears that the cities had all the same laws and customs, the same weights and measures, and the same money. But how far this effect proceeded from the authority of the federal council is left in uncertainty. It is said…
Madison argues that the risk to state governments is more likely from federal predominance than from slow federal “fatal” consolidation, using examples of ancient leagues and feudal Europe.
Let the former be sacrificed to the latter. How far the sacrifice is necessary, has been shown. How far the unsacrificed residue will be endangered, is the question before us. Several important considerations have been touched in the course of these papers, which discountenance the supposition that the operation of the federal government will by degrees prove fatal to the State governments. The more I revolve the su…
Plutarch contrasts Aratus’s political unification of the Achaean cities (with Macedonian support) with Philopoemen’s rise, arguing Philopoemen’s soldierly execution and success made the Achaeans confident enough to go without foreign aid.
with his own hand yielded not to the youngest, nor in good conduct to the oldest, and than whom there came not into the field any better soldier or commander. Aratus, indeed, was the first who raised the Achaeans, inconsiderable till then, into reputation and power, by uniting their divided cities into one commonwealth, and establishing amongst them a humane and truly Grecian form of government; and hence it happene…
Aratus builds the Achaean league through clemency and alliances, then attempts to free Argos by destroying the tyrant Aristomachus; after the plot fails and a worse tyrant takes over, Aratus is forced to retreat.
All freemen whom he took he sent back to the Athenians without ransom, as a sort of first invitation to them to come over to the league. He made Ptolemy become a confederate of the Achaeans, with the privilege of command both by sea and land. And so great was his power with them, that since he could not by law be chosen their general every year, yet every other year he was, and by his counsels and actions was in effe…
After Carthage’s fall, renewed conflict in Achaea arises from disputed Spartan-Achaean issues, Roman commissioner delays, and riots at Corinth, culminating in Critolaus’s campaign and defeat/vanishing in 146 BCE.
exploring expedition round the coast of Africa;[41] and it seems most likely that this was in his year of consulship (147), as after the fall of Carthage Polybius went home. The destruction of Carthage took place in the spring of B.C. 146. When Scipio went back to celebrate his triumph, Polybius seems to have returned to the Peloponnese, there to witness another act of vengeance on the part of Rome, and to do what h…
Polybius explains Greece’s political problem: local autonomy without unity leads to foreign interference and ultimate Macedonian and Roman dominance, then introduces the Achaean League as the first broadly successful federal experiment.
§ 3. THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE[95] To the student of politics the history of Greece is chiefly interesting as offering examples of numerous small states enjoying complete local autonomy, yet retaining a feeling of a larger nationality founded in a community of blood, language, and religion; a community, that is, in the sense that, fundamentally united in these three particulars, they yet acknowledged variations even in the…
After Athens’ decline and Macedonian domination in Greece, two renewed federations emerge—Aetolians and Achaeans—setting up a detailed account of the Aetolian league and then the Achaean league’s origins.
but Alexander’s death left it a prey to warring tyrants. It lost its prosperity and its commerce; and whatever else it became, it was never independent, or really Hellenic again. For a few years more Sparta and then Thebes assumed to be head of Greece, but the Macedonian supremacy secured at Chaeronea (B.C. 338), still more fully after the abortive Lamian war (B.C. 323), left Greece only a nominal freedom, again and…
Aratus becomes Strategus of the Achaean league as Lycurgus of Sparta returns from exile; Lycurgus plans an invasion of Messenia and Aratus reorganizes league forces.
[Sidenote: Other princes.] +90.+ Nor were Prusias and Mithridates far behind these in liberality; nor the princes Lysanias, Olympichus, and Lymnaeas, who were at that time in power in different parts of Asia; and as for states that, according to their several abilities contributed to their assistance, it would be difficult to reckon their number. In fact, though when we regard the time which it took the city to reco…
After Aratus’s death, the Achaeans honor him with sacrifices and hero-shrine status due to his services as Strategus of the Achaean league, describing gratitude for his hardships.
[Sidenote: B.C. 214. Sosibius secures the help of Bolis to rescue Achaeus.] +17.+ Bolis was by birth a Cretan, who had long enjoyed the honours of high military rank at King Ptolemy’s court, and the reputation of being second to none in natural ability, adventurous daring, and experience in war. By repeated arguments Sosibius secured this man’s fidelity; and when he felt sure of his zeal and affection he communicate…
Polybius reports Roman and Greek politics after Perseus’s fall: commissioners select suspected Romanizing opponents to go to Rome, including Achaeans, while arguing over charges.
[Sidenote: The selection of suspected Greeks, especially Achaeans, to be sent to Italy, B.C. 167.] +13.+ After the destruction of Perseus, immediately after the decisive battle, embassies were sent on all sides to congratulate the Roman commanders on the event. And as now all power tended towards Rome, in every city those who were regarded as of the Romanising party were in the ascendant, and were appointed to embas…
Manius Manilius orders the Achaeans to send Polybius quickly to Lilybaeum, but after a report that Carthage has already surrendered hostages, Polybius sails back to the Peloponnese.
[Sidenote: Mission to Bithynia to investigate the quarrel between Nicomedes (II.) and his father Prusias II. See *supra*, 32, 28, B.C. 148.] +6.+ The Romans sent envoys to restrain the impetuosity of Nicomedes and to prevent Attalus from going to war with Prusias. The men appointed were Marcus Licinius, who was suffering from gout, and was quite lamed by it, and with him Aulus Mancinus, who, from a tile falling on h…