The Bible was the most referenced source but Rome's Constitutional Republic was highly prized among the founders. For example,
George Washington mimiced the leadership of Cincinnatus.
Polybius lived under Rome's rise to power and wrote historical accounts.
Polybius sought to answer this question in his book, The Histories.
Polybius believed that Rome’s constitution was effective for two reasons. Firstly, the constitution adapted to suit human nature. Secondly, it prevented what he referred to as “anacyclosis,” a cyclical theory of political evolution and decay
In John Adams’s A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, he cites Polybius numerous times and even dedicates an entire chapter to his theories. Praising the Roman constitution’s separation of powers, Adams writes:
https://fee.org/articles/the-separation-of-powers-from-polybius-to-james-madison/
George Washington mimiced the leadership of Cincinnatus.
Polybius lived under Rome's rise to power and wrote historical accounts.
Polybius sought to answer this question in his book, The Histories.
Polybius believed that Rome’s constitution was effective for two reasons. Firstly, the constitution adapted to suit human nature. Secondly, it prevented what he referred to as “anacyclosis,” a cyclical theory of political evolution and decay
In John Adams’s A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, he cites Polybius numerous times and even dedicates an entire chapter to his theories. Praising the Roman constitution’s separation of powers, Adams writes:
The Roman constitution formed the noblest people and the greatest power that has ever existed. But if all the powers of the consuls, senate, and people had centered in a single assembly of the people, collectively or representatively, will any man pretend to believe that they would have been long free, or ever great?"[33]
James Madison, discussing the separation of powers, stated that “no political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value.”[34] In Federalist 63, Madison cites Polybius, and he dedicates Federalist 47 entirely to the separation of powers. The influence of Polybius can be keenly felt when Madison writes: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”[35]https://fee.org/articles/the-separation-of-powers-from-polybius-to-james-madison/
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