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Alois Düll, Polybios, 1899. Marble. Austrian Parliament Building, Vienna.
This sculpture is part of a series of eight seated figures of ancient historians that flank the grand entrance ramps of the Austrian Parliament Building (Parlamentsgebäude) in Vienna. Designed by architect Theophil Hansen as a “total work of art” (Gesamtkunstwerk) in the Greek Revival style, the building uses these figures to symbolize the intellectual foundations of governance and the continuity of historical record.
Object Information
Artist: Alois Düll (Austrian, 1843–1900).
Date: Completed in 1899.
Medium: Marble (Laas marble).
Location: The lower part of the left (southern) ramp leading to the main portico.
Museum/Site: Austrian Parliament Building (Official Site).
Provenance: Commissioned as part of the decorative program for the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) building under the direction of Theophil Hansen; it has remained in situ since its installation.
Lachmayer, Herbert. “Theophil Hansen and the Library of the Austrian Parliament.” In The Architecture of Knowledge, edited by Anne-Marie Moulin.
Pötschner, Peter. Der Architekt Theophil Hansen. Vienna: Amandus-Edition, 1964.
Telesko, Werner. “The ‘Sculptural Program’ of the Ringstraße: A Statement of Political Identity.” RIHA Journal (Special Issue: Vienna as a Sculptural Centre), 2021.
Polybius. The Histories of Polybius. Translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1889.
Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton. Revised by Frank W. Walbank and Christian Habicht. 6 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010–2012.
Scholarly commentary
Walbank, F. W. A Historical Commentary on Polybius. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957–1979.
Eckstein, Arthur M. Moral Vision in the Histories of Polybius. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Champion, Craige B. Cultural Politics in Polybius’s Histories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Chapter VI On the Forms of States is arguably the most important text in the history of the idea of the Republic, and is an attempt to answer the question that animates historians about whether or not we can predict what is going to happen next. The search for forms in history. The ideal of stability and lastingness.
