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8-05-2015, 03:27

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Both Sacks and Mendels assumed that by studying Polybius’ statements concerning Aetolians, we can recover the historian’s personal feelings, conscious intentions, and subjective operations. But recovery of authorial intention is an intractable problem, fraught with methodological difficulties (Tully 1988). Attempts to recover Polybius’ personal feelings towards Aetolians, and the corollary question as to whether those feelings changed as he wrote his work, would seem to invite inquiry into the stages and dates of the history’s composition and publication. Sacks called attention to passages in which Polybius may have treated Aetolians more sympathetically in his account of second-century events, and these occur in Book 18 of the extant text. As we have seen, Polybius probably began writing history after his political career in Achaea was cut short in the aftermath of Pydna, and Walbank (HCP I.293-294; 1972: 19-25) suggested that Books 1-5 were probably published around 150 bce. Now early in Book 3 (3.3.6), Polybius mentions misfortunes afflicting Aetolians and cephallenians, and this passage suggests that Polybius already at that point in his composition may have conceived a more sympathetic view of Aetolians (cf. Mendels 1984-1986: 63-64 for another interpretation). But precision in determining the time of composition of this passage eludes us. Indeed, the immediately following section (3.4.1-5.8) announces the famous ‘‘change ofplan,’’ the decision to append a further ten books, taking the history from Pydna in 168 down to the catastrophic year 146. This is clearly a later insertion, and insertions of passages, both later modifications of completed sections based on recent experiences and the addition of notes made at the time of earlier occurrences, frustrate attempts at establishing exact chronology for the stages of Polybius’ composition (Champion 2004a: 10-12).

Fortunately, for our purposes chronological approximation of time of composition is sufficient. If we accept that in rough chronological terms Polybius began his work around the time of his extradition to Italy, then it follows that by the time he began writing history the Aetolian Confederation had not been an important, independent political power in Greek affairs for more than twenty years. For in the immediate aftermath of the Aetolian-Antiochene war against Rome, the Romans had executed Flamininus’ plan for Aetolia (cf. Livy 33.11.10) and stripped the confederation ofits political power and influence in Greek affairs, even wresting away its prestigious position of primacy in the Delphic Amphictyony of Greek states (Giovannini 1970; Habicht 1987). In light of historical considerations taken up thus far in this chapter, it is reasonable to assume that the truth of the matter lies somewhere between the positions of Sacks and Mendels. Because of his political heritage as an Achaean patriot, Polybius undoubtedly harbored deep-seated antipathy towards Aetolia. But the fact that Aetolia had for long been emasculated and eliminated as an important player from Mediterranean international politics by the time Polybius turned to historical writing probably allowed the historian a certain emotional distance regarding Aetolia, and perhaps even sympathy for its tragic fate in its relations with Rome. And we may note here that Polybius says the Aetolians continued their marauding criminality only until the Roman administration (30.11.1-4, my emphasis).

The foregoing is a historical approach to the question of Polybius and the Aeto-lians. While this historical reconstruction is plausible enough, in my view the ineradicable element of conjecture in attempting to recover Polybius’ personal feelings regarding Aetolians and uncertainties in attempting to establish exact times of composition for key passages in the Histories leave it unsatisfactory. A fresh approach, viewing the problem from a historiographical rather than a historical perspective, may yield more satisfying results.

In the large narrative trajectory of the Histories, Rome and the Achaean Confederation run a parallel course. In Books 1-5 we see both polities in their optimal condition. At this stage in their respective histories, Rome and Achaea were well-ordered states that fostered communal values and operated according to the dictates of reason (Roman-Achaean parallelism: Petzold 1969: passim; cf. Pedech 1964: 405-431). The underlying principles of both states in their pristine condition were respect for law, self-sufficiency, temperance, and justice in international relations. Polybius underscores the common enterprise of Rome and Achaea when he explicitly states that the finest Achaean achievements came in collaboration with Rome (2.42.4-5). And in a remarkable transition from Roman to Achaean affairs, Polybius lists the Roman triumph over Gauls with famous heroic exploits from Greek history as demonstrations of the superiority of Greek rationality over barbarian impulse. Intriguingly, he also lists Aetolian heroics against Gallic invaders at Delphi, without naming the Aetolians, as one of his paradigmatic examples of Hellenic bravery (2.35, with Champion 1996; Nachtergael 1977 on the historical event).

In these early books, the enemies of both Rome and Achaea serve the historiographical function of underscoring Roman and Achaean virtues by way of contrast. Qualities of these opponents (Gauls, Illyrians, and, to a lesser extent, Carthaginians in the case of Rome; Aetolians in the case of Achaea) are diametrically opposed to Roman and Achaean virtues. They routinely exhibit cowardice, irrationality, greed, intemperance, and emotional excess; they occupy the realm of Polybius’ barbarians. Among them individual drives and passions tear apart the social fabric, rendering any sustained collective enterprise an impossibility. From a historiographical perspective, in this narrative pattern the Aetolians serve as foils for the virtues of Polybius’ Achaeans (Champion 2004a: 100-143).

As the Histories proceeds, Rome and Achaea begin to deteriorate at an accelerating pace as Polybius’ narrative approaches the historian’s present day. Polybius’ purpose is to show that Roman political virtue began to atrophy following Rome’s greatest hour in the aftermath of the disaster inflicted by Hannibal at Cannae in 216 (6.11.1-2, 51.5-8: Rome’s acme), and that the historian himself was a throwback to the conservative values of an earlier day, values that had made Rome (and Achaea) great (Champion 2004a: 144-169). In the passage we have considered on the conference at Larisa between the Aetolians and Flamininus, Polybius relays that Aetolians suspected Flamininus had been bribed by the Macedonian king Philip V. Polybius denies the charge, but in an editorial aside he states that in former days Roman authorities were incorruptible: he cannot say the same for Romans of his own time (18.35.1-2). Some years later in 180, Polybius’ political enemy, the Achaean statesman Callicrates, headed an Achaean embassy to the Roman Senate. Polybius says that Callicrates ignored his official brief and treacherously denounced his compatriots. For Polybius, Callicrates’ embassy was the beginning of new evils for Greece and initiated further deterioration in Roman integrity in international affairs (24.10.1-15, with Derow 1970).

I propose that the best approach to the problem of Polybius and Aetolia is not to attempt to recover the author’s inner thoughts and feelings, but rather to analyze the way his narrative works. In the fragmentary books, from the incipient signs of decay in Book 7 onwards, encroaching political and moral degeneration both at Rome and in Achaea becomes increasingly prominent. Consequently, Aetolia’s historiographical role as contemptible foil for Achaean virtue fades as the work progresses. Moreover, although individuals play an important role in historical causation in the early books, alongside collectivities (Champion 2004a: 103-105), the pernicious effects of individual statesmen, as opposed to collective groups, become more salient in later books. This is because for Polybius societal degeneration means the loosening of communal values and the emergence of individual drives and passions. In Books 30-39, Polybius presents a picture of complete political and moral degeneration, with evil demagogues stirring up volatile masses, and he is careful to condemn such politics, aligning himself with Roman conservative political ideology in the process (Champion 2004b).

Aetolians serve an important historiographical purpose in Books 1-5; they are no longer needed in later books as exemplars of irrationality, greed, and degeneracy. Those vices became universal calamities in the decadent age after Pydna, in which vicious rabble-rousers fomented socioeconomic disturbances. Order could be restored only by removing such corrupt individual statesmen (often Polybius’ political enemies). Depraved individuals apparently posed greater dangers to ordered society than collective groups in this period; Aetolia certainly no longer represented a threat to civilized life. It is by considering this historiographical context, and not by focusing on Polybius’ anti-Aetolian prejudices, that we can best understand both Polybius’ ‘‘other view’’ of Aetolia in general and a remarkable statement on the Aetolians near his history’s end in particular (32.4.1-2, tr. Paton, with slight modifications):

Lykiskos the Aetolian was a turbulent and noisy man, and after he was slain, the Aetolians from this time forward lived in unison and concord, simply owing to the removal of this one man. So great it seems is the power exercised by men’s natures that not only armies and cities, but national groups and in fact all the different peoples which compose the whole world, experience the extremities sometimes of misfortune and sometimes of prosperity, owing to the good or bad character of a single man.

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