Sousarion Reacts #5: Thoughts on Thucydides
Lessons from the war that broke the Greek world.
I’ve been avoiding Thucydides for 15 years. There’s an arrogance in his aura, just from the name alone. Four syllables, tough to spell, weird, but not exactly difficult to pronounce once you realize the y doesn’t sound like the y in happy but rather the y in syllable. It is Greek after all. His vibe? Cold, distant, arrogant. That’s what I’ve gotten from him from the start. So I kept away.
Actually, this isn’t entirely true: I did open the History once a long time ago and read the first few paragraphs. They’re pretty famous sentences actually. In sum, he says that this war which he, Thucydides the Great, is about to recount amounts to the greatest of all motions (Book I, Chapter 1, Section 2). For those who have some familiarity with Ancient Greek, the word is κίνησις, which literal translation is motion.
Not just the biggest and most important war of his generation or in recent memory or in Greek history. No, he calls the Peloponnesian war between the Athenians and the Spartans and their allies, respectively, the greatest and largest motion — a war for all time. (See also Book I, Chapter 23.)
I’m sorry. It’s just too tempting: Erm — sorry dude, but war is a type of motion and there are many motions which take place every day that are always greater and always will be greater. Mmmm-kay?
At first blush, this sounds absurd. War does not encompass motion.
Sigh.
Why should I read this? Why do people read this self-aggrandizing guy?
He’s made a claim that’s so ridiculous and it’s literally the second sentence (in the original Greek) of the History. But this sentence has been taken very seriously for over 2,000 years and serves as one of the most important accounts of Western civilization at its peak.
It’s such an ostentatious claim, that I could not help but sense that there was more to it than the otherwise insane pronouncement.
What other types of writing begin with similar announcements?
Homer’s Iliad: The anger of Achilles is comparable to no other and occurs within the context of the greatest Greek war, over the woman who sailed a thousand ships, and opens with a conflict between history’s greatest warrior and the would-be greatest king. The maximalism is right there.
Or Herodotus’ Histories: recounting the greatest motions in human history so that the records of Greeks — and — non-Greeks, i.e. barbarians, are preserved.
Interesting.
Thucydides’ comment now makes more sense. He challenges both: His History is going to correct the record and take its rightful place as a true record of the cataclysmic event that shook all of Greece and its neighbors. (See Book I, Chapter 22.) The motion will also be demonstrated as incomparably greater than that of the Catalogue of Ships bound for Troy found in Homer, or the sometimes fictitious, sometimes incredible, sometimes true, accounts of motion in Herodotus.
At Book I, Chapter 10, Section 3 of the History, Thucydides openly criticizes the poets — Homer especially — and the other historian, i.e., Herodotus, for exaggerations, ornamentations and mischaracterizations that are composed to sway the crowds and stir up the motions of their souls.
This is fair, and it shows a silent alliance between Thucydides and Plato (for example, see Republic Books 3, 10), for their mutual criticism leveled at poetry. At the same time neither closes the door to making use of poetry in his own work. Gasp!
What does this mean? Thucydides is an ancient historian, not a poet. What’s more, Sousarion, you’ve just cited the famous passage in which he criticizes the poets and the holy cow of Western poetry himself — Homer!
This is true but I’ve opened the door to consider the Thucydidean account with greater precision. For starters, despite claiming to begin at the beginning, Thucydides, in imitation of Homer, throws his reader into the thick of things, to the things already in motion. His History begins in medias res.
This is a truth inherent to all historical accounts. The beginning is not really the beginning. Beginning at the beginning, really means discovering the causes. Again, we see allegiance here not only with Plato, but also with Aristotle, who makes the claim that genuine knowledge is knowledge of the causes (cf. Metaphysics, Posterior Analytics, etc.). The implication here is that to know is to participate in the truth, and the fundamental causes reveal the truth of all things.
Seen in this light, Thucydides is suddenly no mere historian but prophet, philosopher, and poet. His accusation is a confession as well. He is claiming to do exactly what the poets and the philosophers claim in their respective works: to reveal what it means to be a human being. The History of the Peloponnesian War is for Thucydides the greatest motion and the greatest war because it reveals the character of what it means to be a human being.
And if this means that he will be willing to take some liberties in order to communicate what it means to be a human being, well then let it be so. For the value of this book is in the character it reveals, the portrait it presents. This book is a sort of test of one’s own character.
Or, to articulate my point a bit differently, the History is a way to reveal one’s own character to oneself, through the unflinching account of the immensity and tragedy of the motion — the Peloponnesian War. The book presents the speeches and deeds of groups, but especially of remarkable individuals; a cast of character types, whether Athenian, Spartan, or the menagerie of other Greeks and so-called Barbarians. Each of these individuals influences the outcome of this greatest tragedy of all the Greeks. In reading of these types, you, dear reader, are bound to connect with at least one of them.
Do you not see the necessary poetry?
Facts are certainly important, but they have to be constructed into a whole. This construction, a tapestry of interwoven detail, requires coherence and truth. And to reach that truth is to inevitably rely on poetic language and philosophical insight, neither of which remain mere historical facts or ahistorical records of speeches and deeds.
Thucydides repeatedly indicates this with almost each speech he recounts, by saying that Pericles spoke in this way, or Alcibiades spoke like this. (Compare Book 1, Chapter 22, Sections 2 and 4 with Book I, Chapter 31, Section 4 and many other instances, right before a speech begins.) For example, the most famous speech in the History and perhaps the most famous speech in all of ancient Greek history is the Funeral Oration. Thucydides makes no claim to have recorded it verbatim. In fact, he writes “in this way,” not “exactly like this, word for word” (Book II, Chapter 34, Section 8).
Thucydides utilizes the historical speech to reveal the truth of its meaning: That Athens was a genuinely unique and special polis (city-state) with a unique and beautiful character, a unique and special form of governing. And — that what is about to unfold will be Athens’ undoing. This outcome will be the greatest tragedy that could have befallen Greece. That is the point of the Funeral Oration speech.
Had Athens heeded the strategy of Pericles — had they followed the advice of their de facto king ruling a democracy that operated as such in name only — then the Athenians could have avoided the great tragedy and devastation that befell them.
The meaning of history is a tragedy; thus, tragedy is synonymous with human life.
But I’ve digressed, in a way. We’ve not yet spoken with sufficiency of the causes. I’ve jumped the gun and revealed the ending, which ending is foreshadowed at the beginning. So let’s get back to the beginning. To the causes.
Thucydides claims that it is fear which caused the war. That’s fundamentally it. So let’s explore what fear is, and how Thucydides presents it in his History.
Fear arises from a personal realization. It is feeling ill-at-ease about some future outcome. That something bad — likely violent or painful — is about to transpire. Whether at the hands of another person, or a judgment passed or the results of an event, etc. The desire to avoid this bad, or unjust, outcome is precisely when fear kicks in and compels the person to take action to prevent themselves from being inflicted by the otherwise impending outcome.
This is Thucydides’ core teaching on the cause of the war. How does he communicate this? Guys got scared and killed each other, the end? Isn’t this a history of the war between Athenians and Spartans, not a psychological analysis/inquiry into an individual’s experience of fear?
I’ll say this much before more fully presenting the universality of fear and its fundamentality to human nature: even the great Oedipus, archetype of the son who fucked his mother, king of Thebes, Mr. Embodiment of Courage, Mr. Truth-Seeker no matter the cost — even he quakes with fear before the news a blind soothsayer is about to communicate to him, regarding the identity of the murderer of his father.
Despite the noble and heroic commitment to the truth and the courage to face it, he still expresses fear.
He plucks out his eyes when convinced of his guilt.
His courage cracks and breaks. He loses the ability to literally face his actions head on, so heinous and tragic they have been. Crucially, Oedipus, post-self-mutilation, exiles himself to cleanse Thebes, his polis. For the city-state had suffered a plague, the result of his presence and defilement of the city.
Be this as it may be, we can see that Oedipus’ personal fears impacted the fate of the city he rules.
In contrast to Oedipus, Pericles’ speeches (three in total, including the Funeral Oration) assuage Athenian fear, inspire resilience and courage, and represent the famous innovative nature of the Athenians in the face of invasion, revolt, and the might of the Spartans.
It is very interesting, then, for the Thucydidean narrative that the de-facto king of Athens met his end by plague. At the time, a plague was understandably viewed as a mystery of nature that may or may not have had divine origins and thus a judgment on the people of Athens (from their perspective).
Divine or not, it should be crystal clear that an individual’s personal fear at the level of leadership impacts the destiny of the polis. And not merely in a mythical tragedy.
Fear is also connected inextricably to two other crucial themes of this work: justice and necessity. I already indicated these above, in that fear of the bad is the desire for justice, and actions taken are a compulsion to preserve oneself from otherwise certain doom.
These two thematic concepts emerge within the first 20 pages of the work and in a most interesting way: they are each the very first words announced out of the mouths of allied spokesmen, the one for justice from Corcyra and that of necessity from Corinth. The Corcyreans allied with the Athenians, while the Corinthians were bitter enemies of the Athenians and so allied with the Peloponnesians and Spartans.
In this way, we may introduce a decisive suggestion for the outcome of Thucydides’ work: a generation or so prior to the time of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians rose up to defend all of Greece from the invasion of the Persian Empire. This success opened a just permission structure for Athens to become an empire.
The Athenians had run the extra mile. They had put their lives on the line in ways no other Greek had been willing, rallied the Greeks to ally together, and successfully repelled the Persian invaders.
The origin of their empire was recognized as legitimate: they had justly earned it. After the Persian invasion, Athens expanded, continued to strengthen itself, constrain rivals and form enemies, require tribute and consolidate power unto itself. All of which are the hallmarks of an aggressor.
Across such a trajectory, fear was awakened in Athens’ rivals, as well as her friends. Aware of this, the Athenians reached an agreement with Sparta, the 30 Years Truce. In the lead-up to the war, the Athenians did not break the truce, maintaining the side of justice, more or less. (Thucydides does not fail to record the Athenian derivations from justice.)
And so, we can suggest further that, for Thucydides, up until and at least part-way through the Peloponnesian War, Athens, empire notwithstanding, should be seen as more just than the Spartans.
The primary reason for this suggestion comes in the form of the obvious: The Spartans broke the truce, took up their arms and began the war. The Spartan justification is typical of all warmongers who claim to prevent war: preemptive invasion was necessary to thwart Athenian domination of all of Greece.
While the Spartans may have committed the causal crime, once a war begins many other crimes may be committed. And the Athenians and Spartans violated justice with numerous horrors and blunders over the course of this war, which Thucydides took pains to document.
And, due to actions taken, others not taken, but especially the failure to pursue the strategy of Pericles, the Athenian fall became necessary.
Again: is this not a tragedy? — A tragedy in real life?
War is the greatest motion because it is the most tragic of all motions.
Tragedy bleeds the association of the hero with the monarch and the monarch with the empire. Each rests, ultimately on a crime. And each contains that fatal flaw which brings them to their knees and seals their doom. We saw this with Oedipus. Thucydides’ History demonstrates this.
From this fate, this rise, fall, and inevitable collapse, we shall see that there are lessons to be learned.
So what have we learned thus far?
That fear drives rivals to become enemies and foment revolt in the names of justice and necessity. This is a lesson as old as time.
Let me bring this to close with a series of questions. They increase in sprawl, pointedness, and arise as implications of my interpretation to Thucydides’ account:
Why do we see the tragedy play out, over and over, when we carefully assess the human record?
Do we learn nothing from these heroes? And they like us, also learn nothing? Have matters of war and peace always been so unique and alien to that which came before that the historical echo could not but go unnoticed?
Do these repeated failures not indicate that perhaps humanity is simply less apt and able than we think? Or are we simply unwilling to recognize and learn lessons of the past?
Should we not feel a deep sense of shame when facing these humbling suggestions — both of self and of society?
Today we no longer believe in heroes outside of Hollywood comics. We’ve handed over our body politic to shameless lobbyists who serve oligarchs. Are these so-called politicians not revealing themselves as even more inept and evil, while masking their evil and ineptitude behind the curtain of technocracy?
Is the governing process not being broken before our very eyes — with obvious intent to create the space for a despotic tyrant to spy on and control all aspects of our lives?
Thucydides supported such a regime: a nominal democracy, run by a wise and benevolent tyrant, in the form of Pericles. This makes Thucydides, fundamentally, an enemy, not an ally. I’m of the no-kings, anti-monarchist position.
Does this mean we should ignore his insights?
Absolutely not. A monarchist prick may still be an intelligent prick and the words he’s written offer much to learn. Lessons we can all apply and lessons the empire we are living in would also best apply. For the in medias res decline of our empire is no tragedy at all — rather it is taking shape as the demise of one evil into another.
I’ve discussed the causes, though not exhaustively. I will not do this. But I hope to have inspired your curiosity to approach the work and read it carefully. 2,400 years old with insightful lessons that remain applicable today.
I have yet to address Thucydides’ understanding of human nature. That will come later, perhaps when I take up how the war unfolds, and the acceleration of Americ—Athenian decline. More to come.
Such valuable insights we can learn from this Ancient Greek and apply to our own crumbling democracy.