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).
How Polybius' military thinking played a role in Roman conquest
Polybius' military thinking played an important role in Roman conquest due to his primary role adviser of the Scipio Aemilianus, a high ranking Roman General with whom he travelled to various parts of the world such as Spain, Southern France and Africa. They even watched the destruction of Carthage in 146 (Magil & Moose,2003,p.87).
References
Bederman, DJ (2008).The Classical Foundations of the American Constitution: Prevailing Wisdom. Cambridge University Press
Davidson, J (1991).The Gaze in Polybius' Histories James Davidson Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 81 (1991), pp. 10-24 Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.
Hamilton, A.,Jay, J and Madison, J (1788).The Federalist Papers. Available online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1404/1404-h/1404-h.htm
Harris, W.V. (1979) War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (I 979), esp. I1I 1- 13 and IIS-I 6.
Lloyd, M (1998). Polybius and the Founding Fathers: the separation of powers.1999 Donald E. Glover Award, outstanding final project http://mlloyd.org/mdl-indx/polybius/intro.htm
Magill, FN, Moose, CJ (2003).Dictionary of World Biography: The Ancient World. Taylor & Francis,
Rossiter, C (1987).1787: The Grand Convention (New York W.W. Norton, 1987), 64
Tarn, W.W (1927) .Hellenistic Civilisation (1927), 231.
Walbank, FW (2002).Polybius, Rome and the Hellinistic World: Essays and Reflections.Cambridge University Press.
Ancient Historians Influential Ancient Historians Faces of History: Historical Inquiry from Herodotus to Herder by Donald R. Kelley In his book, which is written in a scholarly, colorful, and interesting style, and is as rich with thought-provoking questions as it is lean on assumptions, author Kelley goes to great lengths to set the stage for every historian's work that he discusses. On page 3, he says that "the difficulty" in writing about ancient
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