In the 2nd century BC, this system which took centuries to create began to slowly unravel. Ancient Greek historian Polybius was writing his history book at this very time. Taken from his homeland as a prisoner of war, he spent the last part of his life in the city of Rome. While captivated by how efficient the Roman system was, armed with the lessons of history he started noticing certain patterns that began to appear.
Polybius was a proponent of a certain theory of political evolution. “Anacyclosis” in Greek, this theory posits that politics in a state moves in a cyclical pattern.