Polybios and the rise of Rome: Gramscian hegemony, intellectuals, and passive revolution

Abstract

This chapter explores how Gramsci's concepts of hegemony, intellectuals, and ‘passive revolution’ may be used to reflect on, and in turn be endorsed by, the process of Roman advancement in the Greek East in the third and second centuries BCE and the Greek historian Polybios' mediatory role in Rome's establishment of imperial rule. It begins by noting a correlation between Gramsci's concept of integral hegemony based on the two components of domination and consent and Polybios' ideas about successful imperial rule, and the latter's observation that Rome's rule over the Greek East had not yet developed into ‘integral hegemony’ by the mid-II century BCE due to a lack of goodwill generating policies. It then explores the method of Rome's entrance into the Greek East and suggests this correlates with Gramsci's concept of ‘passive revolution’, but this method ultimately fails due to a lack of commitment, differences in culture, and misaligned views about what the new Romano-Greek relationship should look like. Finally, it considers Polybios as a Gramscian intellectual who has been transformed into a partisan of the Romans and assists in the establishment of Roman ‘hegemony’ while simultaneously working to support his own elite Greek class.