Comp. by: pg0994 Stage : Proof ChapterID: 0001551894 Date:22/5/12 Time:20:17:55 Filepath:d:/womat-filecopy/0001551894.3D143 7 Historiographic Patterns and Historical Obstacles in Polybius’ Histories: Marcellus, Flaminius, and the Mamertine Crisis Craige Champion This chapter examines some historiographic problems in Polybius’ Histories, seeking to understand seeming incongruities between large narrative patterns in the work and its representations of particular historical events. My first section (‘Narrative Patterning in Polybius’ Histories’) summarizes an argu- ment I made more extensively in an earlier study (Champion 2004a); namely that Polybius represents the Roman polity as a well-ordered political commu- nity at the outset, but as the history proceeds he shows Rome’s deterioration in both its domestic and foreign policy spheres. According to his political theory, the causes of this deterioration were Rome’s uncontestable interstate power and the rise of the popular element in political life. Yet there are notable instances of what Polybius regarded as egregiously deplorable behaviour on the part of Roman officials prior to, or at the very beginning of, the stated onset of this decay (sometime after the heroic Roman response to the disaster at Cannae; cf. 6. 11. 1, 51. 3–8). My second section (‘Reading Marcellus and Flaminius’) considers two of these instances: the representations of the behaviours of M. Claudius Marcel- lus and C. Flaminius, which I use to study the apparent contradiction between Polybius’ generally pristine image of third-century Rome and his representa- tion of particular examples of improper behaviour in the period. In my third section (‘Curia, Comitia, and the Mamertine Crisis: Historio- graphic Interventions’) I turn to the main focus of this chapter: the generally positive representation of the Roman decision to cross to Sicily under arms in 264. Critics sharply condemned this action as duplicitous and immoral, both at the time of its occurrence and at the time of Polybius’ composition—making the Roman resolution fit most uncomfortably with the image of third-century Roman political virtue. Some of the interpretative strategies proposed in my OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST PROOF, 22/5/2012, SPi