II 1.5 So, What Went Wrong?

"...a complete change in fortune."

What went wrong with Greece? The Greek historian, Polybius (~200–120 BC) noted how the Greek states had “risen to greatness,” yet “experienced a complete change in fortune.” He found “there is no difficulty in reporting the known facts, and it is not hard to foretell the future by inference from the past.” Those “freed from external menace,” “reap the harvest of good fortune and affluence which is the result of their success, and in the enjoyment of this prosperity,” they are “corrupted by flattery and idleness and wax insolent and overbearing…”

Figure 1.15: The Greek historian Polybius (~200–120 BC) [[i]], left, was detained as a hostage by Rome following the Third Macedonian War in 168 BC. He was present at the sack of Carthage in 146 BC, and aided the Romans in the governance of Greece. Ruins of the Temple to Apollo at Corinth [[ii]], right.

“…[W]hen a new generation arises and the democracy falls into the hands of the grandchildren of its founders, they have become so accustomed to freedom and equality that they no longer value them…” They “begin to lust for power and cannot attain it through themselves or their own good qualities,” so “they ruin their estates, tempting and corrupting the people in every possible way.” Having “created among the masses an appetite for gifts and the habit of receiving them, democracy in its turn is abolished and changes into a rule of force and violence,” until they “find once more a master and monarch” [[iii]]. Rome was waiting to step into the resulting void.

In Polybius’s theory, “Anacyclosis,” Greek city-states began with Monarchy, the rule of a wise and powerful king who brought order from chaos. His less capable descendants declined into cruel despots who ruled by Tyranny. The nobles revolted to form an Aristocracy ruled by the best and wisest nobles. Their descendants become a corrupt Oligarchy ruled by a selfish clique. The people revolted and formed a Democracy to rule themselves. They in turn become a corrupt Demagogy ruled by the rhetoricians who sway their opinions. Finally their state devolves into the chaos of Ochlocracy or mob rule, from which a wise and powerful man seizes power, makes himself king, and starts the cycle anew.

Figure 1.16: Plato’s Degeneration of Regimes, left. The Greek historian Polybius (~200–120 BC) hypothesized a cyclical model of history, “Anacyclosis,” to explain Greek decline and Roman success, right.

In the Republic (Book VIII), Plato had presented his own cycle of governments, although it was more of a degeneration of regimes [[iv]]. From the rule of wise, aristocratic, philosopher-kings in an ideal Kallipolis, government decays to the rule of honorable warriors in a Timocracy, to the rule of the wealthy in an Oligarchy, to rule by the many in a Democracy, Plato ended with the Tyranny of a despot. Polybius countered with his cyclical alternative.

Figure 1.17: Cicero (106-43 BC) denouncing Catiline’s conspiracy to overthrow the Republic in the Roman senate [[v]].

In Polybius’s accounting, Rome was successful because the Roman Republic had a balanced government with the Consuls who held the executive power of a king, the Senate who represented the aristocracy, and the Tribunes who were elected by the people to represent their interests. This balance gave Rome a stable and long-lasting government, in contrast to the fractious Greek poleis. Polybius’ thinking influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States, including John Adams (1735–1826) [[vi]] and James Madison (1751–1836) [[vii]]. In the American system, the President holds the executive power of a king, the Senators (as chosen by the states until the 17^th Amendment in 1913) represent the aristocracy, and the House of Representatives represents the democratic will of the People.

Figure 1.18: John Adams (1735–1826), Roger Sherman (1721–1793), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), and Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) cropped from the engraving on the two-dollar bill of “The Declaration of Independence” by John Trumbull (1756–1843) [[viii]].

Why was Rome able to become the master and monarch of the Greek world? How did Rome conquer the Hellenes who just a few generations before had conquered most of the world? It was more than just the strength of Rome’s balanced government. The other factor was the profound weakness of the Greeks, themselves.

Polybius further reports on the depopulation of Greece and how it happened.

In our time all Greece was visited by a dearth of children and generally a decay of population, owing to which the cities were denuded of inhabitants, and a failure of productiveness resulted, though there were no long-continued wars or serious pestilences among us… For this evil grew upon us rapidly, and without attracting attention, by our men becoming perverted to a passion for show and money and the pleasures of an idle life, and accordingly either not marrying at all, or, if they did marry, refusing to rear the children that were born, or at most one or two out of a great number, for the sake of leaving them well off or bringing them up in extravagant luxury. For when there are only one or two sons, it is evident that, if war or pestilence carries off one, the houses must be left heirless: and, like swarms of bees, little by little the cities become sparsely inhabited and weak [[ix]].

Greece was a victim of its own success and prosperity. The story of the Greek rise and fall offers a lesson for our own present-day malaise. More specifically to the topic of this book, the lesson the Greek experience offers for scientific creativity is the value of diversity. No, not the pseudo-diversity that accepts all races and sexual orientations (no matter how confused) while enforcing intellectual homogeneity, treating dissent as a moral failing, demanding outward signs of compliance, reducing individuals to group identities, and labelling any disagreement as “unsafe” or “exclusionary.” Instead, scientific creativity thrives in an environment of viewpoint and intellectual pluralism, intellectual contestation, and non-moralized disagreement. That was the environment within which the Greeks laid the foundation of science. Our loss of that environment is part of where physics went wrong.

That’s all for now. Remember always to keep calm, and make physics great again.

See you next week,

Hans

P.S. Pick up your copy of Fields & Energy Book I: Fundamentals and Origins of Electromagnetism, if you haven’t already:

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Next time: II 1.5.1 Conformity & Creativity

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References

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[[i]] Polybius - statue on the left ramp of the Austrian Parliament in Vienna, 2007. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Polybios_.jpg

[[ii]] Daciana Cristina Visan, Ancient Greek Temple in Corinth, Greece. See: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ancient-greek-temple-in-corinth-greece-32153261/

[[iii]] Polybius, The Histories, Book VI, published in Vol. III of the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1923. See: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6*.html

[[iv]] Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters, Edith Hamilton and Huntington Caine, eds., Princeton: University Press, 1961, p. 1157. Timaeus, 22b.

[[v]] A fresco by Cesare Maccari (1840-1919) depicting Roman senator Cicero (106-43 BC) denouncing Catiline’s conspiracy to overthrow the Republic in the Roman senate. (Palazzo Madama, Rome). Note: illustrations commonly show the senators arranged in a semicircle around an open space where orators were deemed to stand; in reality the structure of the existing Curia Julia building, which dates in its current form from the Emperor Diocletian, shows that the senators sat in straight and parallel lines on either side of the interior of the building. The Senate was also larger and more dull. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_of_the_Roman_Republic#/media/File:Cicero_Denounces_Catiline_in_the_Roman_Senate_by_Cesare_Maccari.png

[[vi]] Adams, John, Defence of the Constitution of the United States, Letter XXXI, 1787. See: https://anacyclosis.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/EXCERPT-DEFENCE-OF-THE-CONSTITUTIONS-ADAMS-1787-AD.pdf.

[[vii]] Madison, James, (writing as “Publius”), “The Senate Continued,” Federalist Paper #63. See: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-61-70#s-lg-box-wrapper-25493450

[[viii]] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Independence_(painting) and https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/US_%242_reverse.jpg

[[ix]] Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, London: Macmillan, 1889, vol. 1, Book XXXVII-9, p. 510. See: https://archive.org/details/polybius-shuckburgh-1889/page/510/mode/2up