In his history of the rise of Rome, Polybius attributes the power of the city in part to its culture of loyalty and virtue, but also to the mixture of powers within the Republic. He saw the consuls bringing an element of monarchy and the Senate an aspect of aristocracy, but the people also holding power in the form of tribunes who could veto acts of the consuls and Senate. “The best constitution,” he wrote, is “that which partakes of all these three elements.” This view deeply influenced Adams and many other Americans of the Revolutionary generation.
