Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
00:00 | Polybius's Question: How Did Rome Conquer the World?
00:39 | Polybius: Hostage, Historian & Tutor to Scipio
02:05 | The Fall of Corinth & the Greek Cause
02:52 | Why Constitutional Stability Matters: Avoiding Stasis
03:31 | Plato's Circle: The Image of Stability
04:48 | Adding Growth: Rome's Second Question
06:23 | Stability vs Growth: Sparta and Rome Compared
09:30 | Lecture Roadmap: From Greece to Rome
10:01 | Polybius on Why Constitutions Matter
11:31 | Herodotus's Three Simple Constitutions
12:56 | Aristotle's Six-Fold Scheme: Good and Bad Rule
14:11 | Mixing Constitutions to Avoid Decline
15:10 | Three Modes of Mixing: Blending, Co-Presence, Counterbalancing
19:39 | Sparta's Mixed Constitution: Kings, Elders & Assembly
21:17 | Plato and Aristotle on Sparta's Flaws
27:42 | Polybius's Active Counterbalancing & the Rust Metaphor
32:11 | Polybius on Rome's Mixed Constitution
35:30 | Rome's Elements: Consuls, Senate & Assembly
40:02 | Polybius's Cycle of Constitutions
44:45 | Legacy: Adams, Hobbes & the Case for Mixed Government
Watch the Q&A session here: youtu.be/-18jnBqpQxQ
Plato in the fourth century BCE penned an indelible sequence of constitutional decline ending in tyranny, as well as a more complex set of possibilities for mixing different constitutional kinds. Two centuries later, Polybius portrayed constitutional change as cyclical, with an eventual collapse of democracy into ‘ochlocracy’ (mob rule) and then reversion to monarchy. These and other ancient authors proposed that a mixed constitution might prevent unwanted political change – an idea that would influence many later generations of political thinkers.
This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 28th of May 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.
Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.
Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/plato-polybius
Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: gresham.ac.uk/support
Website: gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: twitter.com/greshamcollege
Facebook: facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: instagram.com/greshamcollege
00:00 | Polybius's Question: How Did Rome Conquer the World?
00:39 | Polybius: Hostage, Historian & Tutor to Scipio
02:05 | The Fall of Corinth & the Greek Cause
02:52 | Why Constitutional Stability Matters: Avoiding Stasis
03:31 | Plato's Circle: The Image of Stability
04:48 | Adding Growth: Rome's Second Question
06:23 | Stability vs Growth: Sparta and Rome Compared
09:30 | Lecture Roadmap: From Greece to Rome
10:01 | Polybius on Why Constitutions Matter
11:31 | Herodotus's Three Simple Constitutions
12:56 | Aristotle's Six-Fold Scheme: Good and Bad Rule
14:11 | Mixing Constitutions to Avoid Decline
15:10 | Three Modes of Mixing: Blending, Co-Presence, Counterbalancing
19:39 | Sparta's Mixed Constitution: Kings, Elders & Assembly
21:17 | Plato and Aristotle on Sparta's Flaws
27:42 | Polybius's Active Counterbalancing & the Rust Metaphor
32:11 | Polybius on Rome's Mixed Constitution
35:30 | Rome's Elements: Consuls, Senate & Assembly
40:02 | Polybius's Cycle of Constitutions
44:45 | Legacy: Adams, Hobbes & the Case for Mixed Government
Watch the Q&A session here: youtu.be/-18jnBqpQxQ
Plato in the fourth century BCE penned an indelible sequence of constitutional decline ending in tyranny, as well as a more complex set of possibilities for mixing different constitutional kinds. Two centuries later, Polybius portrayed constitutional change as cyclical, with an eventual collapse of democracy into ‘ochlocracy’ (mob rule) and then reversion to monarchy. These and other ancient authors proposed that a mixed constitution might prevent unwanted political change – an idea that would influence many later generations of political thinkers.
This lecture was recorded by Melissa Lane on the 28th of May 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics, Princeton University and is also Associated Faculty in the Department of Classics and Department of Philosophy. Previously she was Senior University Lecturer at Cambridge University in the Faculty of History and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
She studied for her first degree in Social Studies (awarded summa cum laude) at Harvard University, and then took an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, where she was a student at King’s College, supported by appointments as a Marshall Scholar, Truman Scholar, and Mary Isabel Sibley Fellow of Phi Beta Kappa.
Professor Lane is an author, lecturer and broadcaster who has received major awards including being named a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Lucy Shoe Meritt Resident in Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She has published widely in journals and authored or introduced nine major books including Greek and Roman Political Ideas; Eco-Republic; and most recently, Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political, which was awarded the 2024 Book Prize of the Journal of the History of Philosophy.
Professor Lane is the only person ever to have delivered both the Carlyle Lectures and the Isaiah Berlin Lectures at the University of Oxford.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/plato-polybius
Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: gresham.ac.uk/support
Website: gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: twitter.com/greshamcollege
Facebook: facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: instagram.com/greshamcollege
