Peloponnesian War - Thucydides

(This is in regards to Books VI, VII and VIII.  My previous posts dealing with Thucydides are here.  The posts specifically about the Peloponnesian War are here and here.  A timeline of the Greek conflicts and writers, which I found very useful, is here.)


The reading plan called for reading just books seven and eight, but I decided to start with six instead.  And boy am I glad that I did.  The books break down roughly like this:

• Book VI deals with the decision to break the peace and invade Sicily.  It includes arguments both pro and con and deals with the actual invasion plans.  It follows the reaction on Sicily (especially Syracuse) and other important cities.  It ends with the a large group of Athenians and allies camped outside of Syracuse.
• Book VII starts with the Spartan response.  It follows the Spartan soldiers who were sent to help Syracuse.  It then deals with the various battles and eventual surrender of the entire Athenian army there.
• Book VIII deals mostly with conflicts all over the Aegean Sea.  The Spartan side would foment revolt and the Athenians would try to tamp it down.  Meanwhile the Persian king kept both sides hoping that the Persian fleet would help them.  While this was going on, an oligarchic revolt succeeded in Athens.  The book ends with the defeat of the Athenian fleet in the Hellespont.

Of the three, Book VI was easily the most interesting.  Nicias argues against the invasion.  He talks about long supply chains and lack of friendly territory to retreat to.  Most ominously, he says "I affirm, then, that you leave many enemies behind you here to go there far away and bring more back with you".  This turned out to be exactly what happened.  Athens created a powerful enemy in Syracuse and other cities.  Even setting aside the material loss, which was enormous, the invasion created suspicion among other cities that they could be next.  Suddenly, Athens faced revolt everywhere else.
The pro argument was mostly borne by Alcibiades, who made an explicitly pro-Empire argument.  If Athens could conquer Syracuse, the rest of Sicily would fall in line.  Once Sicily (which was a major grain producer) was Athenian, conquering Italy would be easy.  After Italy, they could wipe out the Peloponnesian (read Spartan) threat.  He said, "Moreover, we cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining what we have but must scheme to extend it for, if we cease to rule others, we shall be in danger of being ruled ourselves". 
The results for Athens were disastrous.

Upcoming

Reading the Odyssey went very fast.  I'm ready to dig into something else.  (I'll write up at least one post on the Odyssey this week.)  Next up is a return to Thucydides.  The plan calls for books seven and eight of the Peloponnesian War, but I think this does a real disservice to the reader.  Back in year Three, we did books one, two and five.  This 'piece' is scheduled for year Nine.  The reader is expected to carry forward the memory of a very complicated war through six years.  If I'd stuck with the plan, I would have read more than 100 pieces in between.
But it gets worse.  Book seven picks up with Athenians fighting in Sicily without any clue as to how/why they are there.  The first sentence is literally 'After refitting their ships, Gylippus and Pythen coasted along from Tarentum to Epizephyrian Locri.'  The reader has no idea who is doing what or where.  It does get better as it goes along, but it's still a bad beginning place.  To fix this, I'm going to add in book six, which presents a more natural starting place.  (If you're scoring at home, please update your scorecards accordingly.)


I mentioned that the Peloponnesian war is complicated and it really is.  Fortunately, I've found an absolutely wonderful resource.  It's called 'The Landmark Thucydides' and it is a phenomenal text.  First of all, it is absolutely filled with maps that mark the cities and regions involved.  It's rare to go more than three pages without a map to help locate what is going on. 
It's also cross indexed so if the narrative jumps around, and it does, the reader can connect the various times and places.  In addition, at the top of each page it helpfully tells you what year and season is being written about.  For instance, book six starts in 416 BC the sixteenth year of the war.  Book seven starts with 414 BC, the eighteenth year.  In the back, there are appendices to help the reader understand certain aspects of the time, like how armies fought or how currencies were used. 
All in all, it's a great book.  I got mine used, so if you don't want to buy new, keep an eye out at the used book store.  There is also a Landmark Herodotus.  I haven't seen it, but if it's even half as useful as the Thucydides work, I'd buy it sight unseen.


In any case, Greek month continues!

What the Ancients Can Teach Us About War

Sometimes people ask me what I've learned from the Great Books.  One (surprising) thing is that I've become less hawkish towards war.  The ancient Greeks (whether intentional or not) showed that war turns out awful for pretty much everyone.  Of course, it has its place, but when we do the cost/benefit analysis, we have to remember that the cost is pretty damn dire.

A War Like No Other - Victor Davis Hanson

I've mentioned that I found the 'Landmark Thucydides' to be a good translation of the the Peloponnesian war.  The other book that helped lead me through it is 'A War Like No Other' by Victor Davis Hanson.  Hanson is a professor of Greek history in California and an expert in the field.  In this book he breaks down the conflict by subject, one per chapter.  The chapters/subjects:

• Fear
• Fire
• Disease
• Terror
• Armor
• Walls
• Horses
• Ships

And so on.  He also does a good job of relating the war to modern ears.  For instance, he talks about how both the pro and anti Iraq war sides cited Thucydides in their arguments during the run up to the war.  A very worthwhile read.

Go to War?

A while ago I was asked if this reading list has led me to any big pops of understanding.  I answered that I'd begun to see just how important the idea of challenging the status quo has been.  Another idea occurred to me though.  Quite a bit of what we've read so far has dealt with the terrible costs of war.  Think of what we've gotten from the Greeks:

• Aristophanes - Lysistrata talks about how hard war is on the women at home.  
• Homer - The Iliad shows that the Trojan war was pretty much a disaster for all involved.
• Aeschylus - A continuation of the tragedies of the Trojan war.  Agamemnon's family was simply shredded in the aftermath.
• Herodotus - The parts of the History we read mainly dwells on the follies of various Persian leaders.  Spoilers: they didn't do well.
• Thucydides - The Peloponnesian war was terrible for pretty much every part of Greece.

The only balance I can think of comes from Plutarch where both Alexander and Caesar benefited from war.  And then were killed.  But their deaths were from disease and politics so they seem to be in a little different category.
Some of this is simply timing.  Quite a bit of the classic Greek works were written during the Peloponnesian war.  It understandably dominated the thinking of the time.  But all the same, these are foundational works of Western thought.  You could very easily read some of the greats and come away anti-war. 
At the very least, this reading has put some caution into my thoughts on the subject.  Not that I was rabidly pro-war before.  (In fact, the rabid pro-war person is more of a caricature than an actual representation.)  But my ideas of the costs and benefits have changed.  My threshold for supporting war is much higher than it was before.

Peloponnesian War - Thucydides

I said there were two things main things to look at in regards to Thucydides, and I wrote about his legacy in terms of how history should be written.  The other thing is the war itself.  On the dawn of the war, Thucydides judged that it would be a big deal and he wanted to future generations to know about it.  What he couldn't have known was just how unusual and complicated a war it would be.
The usual plan for war was for two city-states (or more) to basically declare themselves to be fighting each other.  They would then meet on a plain and face off in battle.  The winner would exact terms from the loser and that would be that.  Athens was a stronger city, but the Spartans (and her allies) were more feared on land.  The Athenians were masters of the sea.
Not so here.  Pericles, the leading politician of Athens, decided that the walls of the city and adjoining port, were strong enough that if the Spartans came, they would simply shepherd everyone inside and wait until the army went away.  Sure enough, the Spartans invaded and everyone who lived and worked in the countryside, sheltered within Athens.  The port remained open and the city was fed.
Fed, but not well.  An enormous plague occurred, one such as had never been encountered before.  It killed tens of thousands.  Modern day historians are still arguing over what kind of plague it was but no one really knows.  Anyway, the Athenians were sheltered from direct fighting but still dying in large numbers.
Meanwhile, the Athenians came up with some unusual tactics of fighting.  They sailed around and attacked various Spartan (and Spartan friendly) ports.  Once there, they encouraged the Spartan helots to rebel.
The Peloponnesian war went through hot and cold phases.  It stretched on for 30 years, firmly stamping itself on the lives of the Greeks.  In Athens, reputations could be lost forever if one didn't act well on the battle field.  Fortunes were lost and whole families were wiped out by sickness and war.  Eventually, Sparta won and Athens was humbled.

Peloponnesian War - Thucydides

There are two basic things to talk about when it comes to Thucydides great work 'The Peloponnesian War'.  The first to talk about is what his writing approach meant to his contemporaries and to posterity.  On the eve of the war, Thucydides had a feeling that this would be an important conflict and he wanted to make a good record.  What followed is sometimes called scientific history, but I think a better term would be 'journalistic history'.  That is, he tried to make a true record of what happened.  He stayed as close to the facts as he possibly could.  He also spoke with people from both sides of the war.  The result is fairly balanced.  Or at least, both Athens and Sparta spend time as heroes and villains.
You can read echoes of Thucydides in more modern efforts at history.  My all time favorite history book is Garrett Mattingly's 'The Armada'.  He details the attack of the Spanish Armada.  Mattingly talks about the political situation in each of the principal countries before the war.  He talks about the main players.  And he spends time discussing popular conceptions of what happened.  Sound familiar?  It's the same template that Thucydides created.
And the second thing?  I think that will have to wait for another post.

I do want to say that Thucydides isn't an easy read.  It helped me tremendously to read from the Landmark version.  I mentioned it here and I want to recommend it again.  It was especially helpful to have maps of the many places that are talked about.  It was also helpful to have so much information cross referenced.

Biography of Thucydides

We don't know a lot about Thucydides outside of what he, himself wrote.  We know that he fought for Athens and was exiled for some time.  We know that he spent at least part of that time in exile with people from the Spartan side of the war.  I've read that there is some comparison between what he did and the embedded reporters of the Iraq war.  We know that he caught the terrible plague that hit Athens early in the Peloponnesian war.  He came from a wealthy family but we don't know much beyond that.
He started what is sometimes called 'scientific history'.  This means that he worked very hard to understand historical events.  In contrast to Herodotus, facts came before story.
His record of the very complicated Peloponnesian war is excellent, though incomplete.  Historians aren't certain if he wrote it continuously through the war or sat down later and wrote in one shot.  He reports things that he saw and he obviously talked to various people throughout the whole conflict.
It's impossible to say how historical writing would have developed without Thucydides but it likely would have been poorer.  

Readings for February

Just one piece:

February
Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War (book I-II, V) link

We don't come back to Thucydides until year nine when we get books seven and eight. 

Where Are the Gods? - Herodotus

It's interesting reading through a progression of Greek writers.  In the past year we've read through Homer's telling of the Trojan war, Herodotus and the Persians and coming up, Thucydides and the Peloponnesian war.  There is a rather big change from Homer to Herodotus and then the big T. 
Homer's telling of war was completely driven by the gods.  They planned the war, they picked out who would die and often helped them on their way.  The gods even fought over how to kill off the survivors.  In Homer's world, the gods stood in for fate and decided who would make it out alive.
Herodotus is much less into the divine.  His stories are driven by great people and the decisions they make.  He does emphasize messages from oracles.  They're conduits of the gods but we no longer have any insight into the motives behind fated actions.
Thucydides writes about war in an almost modern fashion.  Decisions are made solely by people and battles are won or lost based on who was best prepared and best led.  He mentions phrases from oracles only in the way that they might have matched events.  He also mentions temples and shrines but only to show the respect that people paid to them.  His is a history in which other people have custom and possibly belief, but you couldn't prove that he has either.

Readings for February

Just one piece:


February
Thucydides: The History of the Peloponnesian War (book I-II, V) link

We're pretty deep into ancient Greek history these first couple of months.

Landmark Herodotus and Thucydides

I want to pass on a format recommendation for reading Herodotus and Thucydides.  There are Landmark versions of both that are simply wonderful.  I got the Landmark Thucydides from the library and it has made understanding the writing much simpler.
Each page has a header that keeps track of which year and season of the war is taking place.  There are footnotes that connect the readings to other places within the Peloponnessian War.  Each paragraph has a summary statement in case the meanings are confusing.  There are also essays and indexes in the back to give more background, but I haven't dug into any of those yet.
And best of all, there are maps every few pages to help the reader place all of the mentioned cities and regions!  This is crucial to understanding something as geographically driven as a war.  I with I'd read Herodotus with the Landmark to keep clear where the battles were taking place.
If you're keeping up with the reading list or just stumbled upon this post from Google, I can't recommend these books too highly.

Greek Timeline

I'd normally put up biographies of Aeschylus and Herodotus but I did that last year.  You can find Aeschylus here and Herodotus here.  Last year I wrote that it was important to have a feel for the overall contemporary history of this period and I still think that's true.  So I'll just reproduce the timeline that I made then. 

There were three different wars that pictured the ancient Greek worldview and it's useful to put the various writers in context of those wars.  (As future historians learn about the 20th century, they'll need to be very aware of both world wars and the Vietnam war.  Same deal.)

Trojan War - (Sometime in the 1200s or 1100s BC)  This was the legendary war that provided so many stories of heroism and courage.  The Greeks wrote and sung about the happenings of this war for centuries.

Homer - (850 BC?)  The Homeric epics cemented the Trojan war and its aftermath in Greek storytelling.

Aeschylus - (525 - 456 BC)  Wrote about Agamemnon's return from the wars and the ensuing bloodbath.

Greco/Persian wars - (499 - 449 BC)  Notably, this started with a Greek adventure into Persian territory.  The Persians counter-invaded in 492 and the incredibly influential battle of Marathon happened in 490.  Two generations of Greeks lived with the reality of war with the Persian empire.

(Battle of Thermopylae 480 BC) A battle within the greater Greco/Persian war. 

Herodotus (484 - 425 BC) - Both men grew up in the wars.  It's notable that Herodotus traveled extensively during this whole period.  When he wrote about the conflict with Persia, he undoubtedly talked with veterans and contemporaries. 

Socrates (469 - 399 BC) - Grew up as the wars were winding down.  Was in his late 30's when the next war really heated up.



Thucydides (460 - 395 BC) - Was alive as an adult during the whole of the Peloponnesian War. 

Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC) - This war had many phases, but the most important for this timeline is that Athens was completely humbled by the end.  We're set to read Thucydides on this subject next year.

Plato (428 - 348 BC) - Grew up during the long fight with Sparta.  His adulthood was mostly in the post-war era.

Aristotle (384 - 322 BC) - Lived entirely after the wars.  By this time Athens was no longer had an empire nor a world power.