Interpreting the Defeat of the Achaean Sympolity by Rome Through a Defence Economics Perspective
This chapter explains, through a Defence Economics perspective, why the Achaean federal state finally failed to offer adequate resistance to Rome and forestall the latter’s eventual triumph. To achieve this, we compare the Achaean federal state to Rome by
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Interpreting the Defeat of the Achaean Sympolity by Rome Through a Defence Economics Perspective
3.1
The Socio-Economic Aspects Regarding the Strategic Choice of War Over Peace
Polybius ascribed a great deal of responsibility for the defeat at Leucopetra to the leaders of the Sympolity, Diaeus and Critolaus, deeming them demagogues who swayed their citizens towards direct confrontation with mighty Rome, resulting in the dissolution of the Achaean Sympolity and Corinth’s destruction (Polyb. Hist. 38.9–10; Champion 2013, p. 127; Mackil 2013, p. 142). Polybius’ description is brutal: the Achaeans in effect fell victim: to the worst of men, hated by the gods, who turned their nation into a ruin.
This judgement is rather unfair, made in retrospect, with the outcome of the war a given. Mackil (2013, p. 142) notes in this respect that Polybius, an Achaean, was in an awkward position having to act as an apologist for Rome and her policy in the Peloponnesus and across the Sympolity. It is obvious that Polybius, although in principle an objective observer, does not want to offend his Roman readership, concentrating on the Achaeans’ failings and sidestepping the Roman machinations that contributed so massively to the gradual debilitation of the Sympolity’s power and its eventual destruction. Characterising Diaeus and Critolaus as those mainly responsible for the destruction of the Sympolity, Polybius, probably mistakenly, correlates their attempts at social reform with critical errors by Critolaus on military matters and in the Sympolity’s relations with Rome. Critolaus could have followed a more accommodating stand to avoid direct confrontation with Rome. But one can reasonably assume that he was simply expressing what the average Achaean citizen was feeling, resigned to war, fed up by the many years of the Roman Senate’s constant interference and obvious ambition to exert its dominance over the Sympolity. In this light, Polybius perhaps focused on Critolaus the greater share of responsibility to avoid putting off his
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 E. M. L. Economou, The Achaean Federation in Ancient Greece, Frontiers in Economic History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52697-9_3
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Interpreting the Defeat of the Achaean Sympolity by Rome Through a Defence. . .
Achaean readership. In any event, responsibility for what transpired must be shared as much by Critolaus and Diaeus, as by the average citizens of Achaea. The decision by the Achaean people to object to the dissolution of their federal state by defying Rome’s demands may be expressed in modern terms as expressed in the bibliography on the theory of conflict and settlement. This essentially relates to the dilemma of war or peace, through an economic perspective, based on the research field of Defence Economics. According to this theory, Nation A will try to avoid conflict with Nation B when its citizens, as economically active units, determine that the damage incurred to them on a personal level by war outweighs the possible advantages of waging i
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