War never changes.

Anyone who believes that democracy is a good idea has not read Thucydides' Peloponnesian War. Thucydides blamed the outbreak of the war and the unnecessary prolongation to Athens' democratic system. Unlike the neighbouring states in the Peloponnesian peninsula which were oligarchies of owners of large agriculture estates the affairs of Athens were controlled by merchants who dominated the elections.

As Athens acquired more client states in the region to facilitate its commercial activities, the states run by agricultural oligarchies became more and more nervous. Athens democratic system selected leaders who talked tough on foreign policy and did not make concessions to unhappy neighbouring states. The agricultural oligarchs who were not required to make public statements were always willing to come to negotiated settlements. One has to think of George Bush loudly proclaiming that American would not cut and run in Iraq, despite the fact that it had no chance of installing a friendly regime in the territory that it had nominally conquered. Since coming to power, Obama has been very reluctant to formally concede defeat.

If Thucydides proposes a model that explains America's traditional inability to sign treaties for wars that it has either won or lost, he also he portrays the behaviour of armies in a way that conforms to the stories presented to us by Amnesty International and Doctors without Borders. Armies that win battles always commit atrocities in the opinion of Thucydides and then try to cover them up.

This great work has not aged one day in the 2500 years since it was written. Every generation of historians acknowledges its greatness.

This book is impossible to review but I still wanted to give my opinion on this as I try to do with every outstanding book I come across. I mean impossible because this book is the cornerstone for different disciplines, mainly History and International Relations. This is no surprise as Thucydides was intending to provide a historic account of the greatest war of his time, the war between Sparta and Athens while not focusing on any superstitious beliefs. Being the first historian, he set about trying to understand this great powers struggle over control of the Greek world paying no attention to prophecies (unless it impacted the actions of the actors, as it usually did with Sparta).

Having framed the book on its actual importance, I am left with my impressions. I had assumed the book was going to be a boring account of ship and hoplite numbers per battle as well as one or two mentions to Greek commanders. Obviously, I had completely underestimated Thucydides' skills as well as the great job the translators have done since its time of publication (I guess we owe Hobbes the bulk of it back on the 17th century). The book does have that, but it is so much more.

Thucydides was an important Athenian figure during this conflict. He was a general while one of the greatest Spartan commanders -Brasidas- was fighting in Thrace and he lived some time on Sparta as well after being exiled by the Athenians. This allowed him to provide insight on the conflict while not being completely one sided. Additionally, his involvement in the everyday struggle the leaders had, allowed him to provide a unique account on human nature of his time. The book immerses you in this conflict in a way that I thought impossible to do. You will hear the speeches of the Athenian politicians; you will feel the disgust Thucydides had when writing about the demagogue Cleon, as well as Cleon exploits of his fame and good fortune against the Spartans on Sphacteria; you will smell the sea, sweat, and tears of the Athenians fighting for their survival on Syracuse; all this embedded on a page turning narrative where diplomacy, treason, political maneuvers, and personal traits of different leaders shaped the world.

This is an excellent book that anyone interested in the ancient Hellenic world must read.

Goodbye Thucydides may we never meet again

Thucydides follows self-consciously on from Herodotus as a 'historian' but takes a very different tack. Partly this is due to their place in history: Herodotus was the product of a triumphant Athens leading the Mediterannean world after shockingly defeating the huge Persian invasion of Greece, while Thucydides lives through the decline of Athens from her high point under Pericles through to her final defeat under Sparta. A critic of Athenian democracy and the rise of the demagogues, Thucydides is also a participant in the 37 years long war, as strategos (General) who was defeated at Amphipolis and exiled from Athens. What is amazing is his ability to stay detached and analytical, despite his personal involvement in events.

This is a heart-breaking story of the decline of a great city-state through her own folly, and a good antidote to all the people who still claim classical Athens as the high point of civilisation - yes, there was a lot that was great, but Athens was also guilty of horrendous massacres, putting whole islands of fellow Greeks to death or to be sold into slavery.

A wonderful 'must read' for anyone interested in ancient history, politics, democracy, war, and human nature - and it also includes a portrait of the maverick, brilliant and ruthless Alcibiades and shows him to be a product of his times.

It is the fate of all great minds, it seems, to be abused and disabused by their future interpreters. When contemporary writers reach back into history for their ideological forebears, much of their themselves travels with them, and is painted sickly o'er with the pale cast of (modern) thought. What results is a kind of reverse-causation: rather than the historical author shaping future views, increasingly it is the future views which shape the historical author. A stereotype emerges, and is repeated for its simplicity and the support it lends present academic and policy contests. Thucydides is just such a man. The father of history; the father or realism; the father of international relations. The eponymous source of 'the Thucydides trap'; 'the strong do what they may, the weak suffer what they must'. This is the picture most often painted of Thucydides today, and like any stereotype, in the process of being made easily legible much of the nuance it lost.
Now, with such a preamble, you might imagine that i will take the position of the impartial bystander, but that is anything but the case. I went into the book to find 'Thucydides the political theorist', so the precise methodology or historical accuracy of the accounts was of no concern to me—my interest was Thucydides himself, not the Peloponnesian War. And in that reading, i found a text far more vibrant and interesting than the reputation that precedes it. The work is steeped in the tropes of greek theatre and rhetoric, presenting itself as much as a 'tragedy of athens' as a history of a war. It is a tale with lead actors, complex motivations, speeches laced with irony and poignant juxtapositions. These speeches—the highlight of the work—are themselves complex moral and political debates, while also being heavily contextualised by events and speeches that come before and after. The hasty spartan surrender and truce at Pylos making the speech about natural courage and loyalty to allies at the war council hypocritical; the pompous speech of Pericles about how little Athenians feel their death followed immediately by depictions of terror and cowardice during the plague of Athens. All these are deliberate affects which Thucydides added to make specific points, a point of which he admits at the beginning in regards to inventing the speeches. As such, to read them as simple fact, or in sparce excerpts or quotes is likely to produce radically incorrect readings.
The two best examples are the Melian dialogue and Pericles’ Funeral Oration. One is taken to be the ur-statement of International Realism, the other a great humanist paean of Democracy. When in fact, taken in the context of the work, represent something radically different. In the Tragedy of Athens, the ordeal at Melos is verymuch ‘the pride before the fall’, it is meant to be a demonstration of just how far Athens has strayed from a leader of Greece to its tyrant (which has special irony in the context of Athenian history), completely lacking the restraint-in-reason previously shown by the countervailing voices of Pericles and Diototus. This Melian doctrine of the weak over the strong is shown to tear Athens apart, first by turning inwards with Alcibiades’ brazen demagoguery and self-elevation, then it repeating with positions reversed in the disastrous Syracusan expedition. It is a narratively about the folly of Athens, not an immortal truth of interstate relations. So too is the Funeral Oration proven to be completely false. The point about the plague has already been mentioned, but almost everything Pericles praises about Athens is either shown to be untrue or ends up corrupted: Their prized public reason and debate is shown to be little more than vulgar lynching rabble in the Mytilenean debate; their apparent lack of self-interest is dispelled by the blatant greed of leading citizens like Cleon and Alcibiades; even the ‘eros’ which Pericles implores the citizens to hold for their city ends up motivating the expedition to Syracuse which ruins their state. In the light of this, the Funeral Oration doesn’t seem triumphant, but self-deluding propaganda.
As tangential as these points have ended up being, I hope they show-in-demonstration why Thucydides is such an interesting read. The work is a dense forest of interpretation, and you could speak for days about the point of each speech and key event. Throughout you can find comments on topics as diverse as the meaning of political autonomy, the measure of human nature, of tensions between private and public interests, of interests and justice, the nature of ‘necessity’, the link between political structures and cultures, and much, much more. Beyond the IR 101 portrait lies an anecdotal political thinker of as much complexity and wisdom as a Machiavelli or a Tocqueville (themselves victims of the same stereotyping process). At this point you don’t need someone like me to recommend Thucydides, but perhaps I can add the recommendation to read him on his own terms. Not as the father of this or that, but as a thinker in his own right.

Herodotus gets credit for being the first historian but Thucydides is only a little later and much more reliable he doesn't spin tall tales. His history reads like many histories in modern times. His voice is not alien to modern ears. The story of battles, wars, and politics doesn't sound weird. We can imagine headlines around his type of narrative in NYT. Not saying he is perfect but he looks a lot like a historian as we have come to know them. Anyway, the Peloponnesian war weakened the powers of Athens and Sparta, and the infighting of the Greek city-states made for easy pickings later by Philip of Macedon. This book has been historically revived because the rivalry between two major powers is a perennial problem so the history of great power clashes is always relevant. As a cold war kid, I can personally attest to the high drama of such narratives.

فصل سوم کتاب «شهر و انسان» لئو اشتراوس به این کتاب می‌پردازد. همچنین این درسگفتار هم درباره‌ی همین کتاب است:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...

The Peloponnesian War was, to say the least, a challenging read for me. Thucydides is writing about a war that happened thousands of years ago, in a completely different culture, in an area where I don't know the geography, between a bunch of states that no longer exist. Oh yes, and there is no unified dating system at the time either. It’s also clear from reading the Peloponnesian War that Thucydides was an aspiring general, not an aspiring poet. One review I encountered while searching for a different translation stated that Thucydides “uses a style that might lead a reader to think that he deliberately was putting his readers through some kind of torture.” Well, torture might be putting too fine a word on it, but Thucydides sure doesn’t pamper his readers. He throws a barrage of names, places and generals at you, assuming that his readers are going to know where, what and who he is talking about. If you aren’t a classics scholar, you might not know, for instance, that the Lacedaemonians that Thucydides goes on and on about are just another name for the Spartans. He also jumps around from place to place so he can cover everything chronologically, and this makes following the locations of all the battles and generals tricky. I recommend that anyone who tries reading Thucydides to get a good critical edition with lots of footnotes, maps and as readable a translation as you can find. Blanco was who I wound up with, but there might be better versions out there.

Having not read Herodotus, I can’t properly say just how much of the historical discipline Thucydides invented. But I have read Homer, and I do think there’s an interesting comparison to be made there. Thucydides, after all, never mentions Herodotus directly, but he talks about Homer’s facts and figures at length. I think in many ways, Thucydides saw himself as embodying a factual, realistic vision of history in contrast to Homer (and presumably Herodotus, who wrote accounts of history down where the Gods showed up in battle). Homer was very poetic when he wrote that Helen’s was the “face that launched a thousand ships”, but Thycudides notes that for one Agamemnon being the leader of the alliance probably had more to do with it, and for two the number one thousand seems dreadfully inflated.

In Homer, war is treated as kind of a crapshoot that comes down to emotional intensity, the favor of the Gods, and the justice of the cause. Greece is destined to win the Trojan War because the stealing of Helen was a violation of hospitality, so the majority of Gods decree it to be so. Achilles fights up to the walls of Troy because he’s super angry, not because he came up with some clever stratagem. Ajax might be kicking butt, but if suddenly Zeus comes down and says “Nope, not today” the Trojans are going to win. In Homer, it’s the favor of the Gods that makes all the difference. The course of events is determined by the gods. And in a fine tradition leading to the present day, people continue to feel that right makes might.

Thucydides was probably the first to react to the notion that the side that was more just would be favored by the Gods and win. It’s pretty astonishing in that context to read the debate between Athens and the island of Melos which Athens plans to conquer. Melos complains that the invasion of Athens is unjust and that the gods will punish the Athenians. Athens responds “Yeah, it’s unjust. So what? Who cares about justice? The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Oh and by the way, the gods aren’t going to fly down and help you guys.” And then Athens steamrolls the colony, kills off all the men and sells the women into slavery. Every decision is made as part of a rational calculus of interests. This rational, realist approach is also reflected in how Thucydides describes battle. For him, it’s not primarily about the emotions of the combatants and the will of the Gods. It’s all about reason and strategy- who has the high ground, who outflanks who, who has retrofitted their ships to better fight in a harbor.

The question of whether or not Thucydides actually is the 100% factual rational historian he presents himself as really only occurred to me near the end of the text. Were the Athenians really so cynically frank about their motives? After all, even the most bellicose dictators today at least come up with some meager justification for their actions, why not Athens? Why is it that Thycudides didn’t cite his sources when apparently Herodotus did? Are those long speeches actually verbatim (or near it) as Thycudides claims, or was Thycudides taking a bit of poetic license himself by amalgamating different thoughts, speeches and points that were made over the course of a debate? And though decisions are often made based on reason, its not like people are emotionless robots- some emotion and irrational behavior sneaks in there too.

I admit that I found Thucydides tough going, and honestly, I don’t know if I learned a ton about the Peloponnesian War, but I wouldn’t say it was completely a waste of time. Reading it inspired a lot of thought, and showed me a bit about where some of our frames and ideas in political thought and history came from. Just don't expect any poetry.

i laugh when i consider what thucydides would think about the state of political affairs and the crisis of speech in modern day

"La Guerra del Peloponeso" es como el paso de las estaciones, como la belleza aterradora de un pico helado: se diría obra de una mente no humana. Tucídides escribe con la misma frialdad y el mismo distanciamiento acerca de una expedición espartana ("al año siguiente, a finales de primavera, cuando el trigo aún no esta maduro, marcharon los espartanos contra el Ática") y sobre los cadáveres amontonándose durante la peste de Atenas. El autor fue general en la guerra pero su libro no toma partido. Los discursos de los personajes tienen la misma fuerza y la misma lógica en ambos bandos: todos tienen una justificación perfectamente racional y decente para arrojarse a la carnicería. La narración nunca se apresura, nunca trata de impresionar al lector con metáforas llamativas ni con exageraciones. Es esa frialdad, esa precisión en el detalle, lo que hace de ésta una obra tan aterradora.

Tucídides escribe como un hombre moderno, que no se molesta en buscar explicaciones sobrenaturales para los acontecimientos: el primer capítulo de la obra es un pasmoso ejercicio de lógica y de sentido común, en el que el autor trata de establecer la historia antigua de Grecia más allá de las leyendas homéricas, recurriendo incluso a la arqueología ("Los habitantes de la isla eran fenicios, como muestran las tumbas que allí se encontraron"). Desde el principio, el autor deja bien claro que cada guerra tiene dos motivos: uno, el honroso pretexto que dan los contendientes para luchar y otro, el conflicto despiadado por los recursos y por las esferas de poder.

Lanzas y escudos, galeras de madera y oráculos de antiguos dioses: por debajo de los detalles superficiales, los griegos de Tucídides se guían por la misma codicia, la misma soberbia y por el mismo miedo que siguen provocando guerras en nuestro siglo XXI. Pocas cosas se habrán escrito más pavorosas que el "Diálogo de los Melios", en el que los atenienses aplastaron a un enemigo indefenso, sin otro motivo que su propia debilidad, y lo justificaron con la frase terrible: "Los dioses favorecen al poderoso". Nunca se ha explicado con más sencillez la falta de justicia que domina la historia y los asuntos humanos.

Y sin embargo, entre tantos horrores también relucen la nobleza y la sabiduría. El momento más conmovedor del libro, hacia el final, es la desastrosa expedición ateniense a Sicilia y la muerte de Nicias, "el mejor de entre los griegos de su generación", quizá el único personaje del libro que trata de reducir las muertes y el sufrimiento.

Las obras maestras de la literatura universal son las que reflejan la condición humana, lo que nos define a través de los siglos y los países. "La Guerra del Peloponeso" es, sin duda, uno de los mejores libros que jamás se hayan escrito.

The story of a military disaster
20 July 2010

tI really liked this book, but then I generally really like books that deal with ancient history and are a retelling of events that were beyond our lifetimes, such as this one. This book, though incomplete (namely because the author died before he could finish it) tells of a war between the rival Greek city states of Athens and Sparta. I could (and would like to) write a thesis on this book, but I will stick to my main theme, and that is the invasion of Sicily. As I read it, I thought as to whether there was a similar event in our time that reflects what happened then. Namely, in the middle of a war, the Athenians send a bulk of their forces halfway across the Mediterranean to capture an island that really had little to do with the war they were fighting and lost. Though they lasted another ten years, it was this event that brought about the downfall of their empire. Remember, Athens was a democracy, so it was not as if a single ruler made up his mind to do this, but rather one party, though the use of elegant speeches and promises of glory managed to bring the people of Athens around to their way of thinking and to vote in favour of this war.

tIt does remind me very much of a similar war in this century.