O povo como fundamento da política no Livro VI das Histórias de Políbio.

Zaccarelli Salgueiro, Fernanda Elias

The aim of this article is to analyze the role of the people in Polybius’s political thought, as presented in Book VI of his Histories. We argue the hypothesis that, according to the Greek author, there is no politics without the people, a conception that remains embodied both in the Polybian cycle of singular regimes and in the proposed model of the Roman mixed constitution. The emergence of what distinguishes what is properly human coincides with the emergence of the conditions of possibility of politics. With these two processes, the multitude transforms into the people. To support these ideas, we must engage with three prevalent readings in the field of critical examination, whose developments go in the opposite direction to the one we propose here: that, due to its aristocratic trait, Polybius assigned a secondary place to the people in his political theory; that anacyclosis holds an exclusive relationship of contrast with the Roman composite regime; and that the theory of the Greek author should be analyzed exclusively in light of historical truth. We present divergent interpretations of these in order to assume the necessary intermediary hypotheses for the grounding of the central argument of the work. The structure of the text involves five parts, in this order: introduction with preliminary presentation of the central hypothesis and the questions that problematize it; theoretical centrality and structure of Book VI; analysis of the cycle of singular regimes; examination of the Roman mixed constitution with emphasis on the role of the people; and response to the questions raised with a view to a grounded reaffirmation of the main hypothesis.

POLITICAL philosophy; POLITICAL science; CONSTITUTIONS; PRACTICAL politics; ARGUMENT

DoisPontos, 2024, Vol 21, Issue 2, p159

1807-3883

Academic Journal

10.5380/dp.v21i2.94731