Peloponnesian War

Temple on the Island of Delos

(Site of treasury of the Delian League)

Thucydides is involved in the affairs of the Peloponnesian War, as a general and as a writer. His actions as general are noted as is his exile. His exile provided the time and perspective to write the history, but not as a detached observer of indifferent historical objects.

• 2.48.3: Suffers from the Plague

• 4.104.4: Called from Thasos to Amphipolis

• 5.26.5: Exiled by Athens, which gives him the leisure or rest to observe and write this history

• And, at the end of most years, he is indicated as the author of this history

Thucydides uses the first person singular: he is involved in the events he will describe; he does not present a pretense of distance through the use of the first-person plural or through the reference to himself in the third person [however, note, the end of each year refers to himself in the third person] (See Strauss Course on Thucydides Lecture III).

Causality – Also, the scientific standpoint assumes a certain understanding of causality as a necessary condition, as “efficient cause”. However, cause (aition) originally has a sense of moral responsibility (see Vegetti). Thucydides’ use of “cause” (aition) still has this moral sense – causes are moral “accusations”; aitia = responsible, culpable, accusation. So too, his supposed use of the concept of a “true cause” (prophasis) (1.23.6) actually means “bring to light” in context of the courtroom.

This will have implications for the common claim, discussed below, that Thucydides is the father of “political realism”. That is, when he says that the real cause was Spartan fear of Athenian power, this is not to assert that there are necessary relations of power that exceed the framework of what is just under international treaties. Rather, it is to say that there are professed and unprofessed “accusations” in relation to the balance of power that was to obtain under the preceding treaty arrangement.

POLITICAL REALISM

He also has been called the father of the school of “political realism”. According to the thesis of political realism, the behavior of individuals and the relations between states is ultimately determined by fear and self-interest. His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide and the Melian Dialogue is regarded as a seminal work of international relations theory – in the context of his supposedly foundational statement of political realism.

If we compare Thucydides to the classic works of political philosophy, such as Plato’s Republic, there is an immense gulf between Thucydides’ attention to the particulars of political affairs in this world. Plato, of course, feels that philosophical inquiry begins when we separate ourselves from the cave of political opinions and their particular actions.

This can be interpreted as Plato is on the side of a political idealism while Thucydides presents a certain political realism, in another sense: his cities are not so harmonious as those we find in the descriptions of the best regimes in Plato’s Republic, or Laws and in Aristotle‘s Politics. What we are presented with in the pages of Thucydides is actual cities engaged in “real” or “power” politics.

However, again we can question whether or not this is the main thrust of Thucydides’ message. There is a certain dimension of what might be called the ideals of “humanity” and reverence for notions of the “good” in his work

In this sense, both Plato and Thucydides, each in their own way, approach the phenomena of the political as they arise for us: political philosophy and political history are mutually enforcing. Thucydides’ political history is an examination of the real world of particulars, but in such a way that they can teach us about what is enduring.

THUCYDIDES AND THE HISTORIANS

History comes from Greek for “inquiry” (istoria). Certain authors preceded Thucydides in their inquiry into the actual events of the world as they unfold: Hecataeus and Herodotus are generally named. For Aristotle, History is the furthest removed from Philosophy – tied to particulars; so, if there is a quarrel of philosophy and poetry, in some senses there is even a greater difference between philosophy and history – it does not manifest itself as a quarrel because they are so removed from one another they do not share the ground of a concern for universal truths.

Poetry and history do not differ essentially because one is in meter and the other not. Rather, “they differ in this: the one speaks of what has come to be while the other speaks of what sort would come to be. Therefore poiêsis is more philosophic and of more stature than history. For poetry speaks rather of the general things while history speaks of the particular things” (Poetics 1451b6-8). We could say that, for Aristotle, history is the form of inquiry most tied to the cave of particular situations and opinions, while philosophy is that which is at the furthest pole from these particular situations in the search for the enduring.

In our modern age, through a reversal of Aristotle’s judgement, we live under a “historical” prejudice: it is our belief that the search for enduring truths is fanciful; rather, it is most valuable to document the actions and sufferings of men everywhere and in all times. (Questioning of this by Nietzsche in UMb; see Strauss, Course on Thucydides, Lecture III). The historical prejudice of our times also involves understanding all action and thought as fundamentally conditioned by its historical context: Historicism. If we return to the ground of history in Thucydides, we see an approach to history that precedes the Aristotelian opposition. For Thucydides, the exploration of the particular events of the Peloponnesian War can enlighten men of all times as to certain universal truths of human conduct.

THUCYDIDES AND THE POETS

Thucydides, though, only explicitly refers to Homer. He does not feel the need to distinguish himself from the historians as severely. Thucydides distinguishes himself and his time from his predecessors by insisting on the “weakness of ancient times” (1.3.1). Homer, on the contrary, repeatedly emphasizes the superior strength of the ancient times:

• The narrator of the Iliad stresses the greater physical prowess of the heroes of Troy as compared to “modern” men (i.e., Homer’s contemporaries) when he depicts Hector easily lifting a huge boulder that two men today could not budge (12.516-23; cf. 5.338, where Diomedes does the same and the narrator adds the same comment; cf. 20.327-330, where the same incident is described with Aeneas hurling a boulder).

Like Homer, the speeches which Thucydides gives his readers are improved versions of what may have been actually said. They are, to quote Orwin, "an improvement on truth that serves the truth." The historical "truth" that is, as Thucydides saw it. Unlike the epic poets or the prose chroniclers whom the Greeks called "logographers", he did not embellish his account of deeds, the erga (works) of the past. He only embellishes the speeches. The poets, on the contrary, speak big (exaggerate) and adorn (meizon, cosmountes; adorning and magnifying), the deeds of that which they describe (1.21).

Thucydides is perhaps in the broad tradition of early Greek philosophers, generally inquiring into the nature of things; in particular, it is often claimed, his work echoes the medical thinkers (search for true causes vs symptoms). However, Thucydides never uses the word “history” (inquiry). And in Aristotle’s discussion of the differences between history and poetry cited above, Aristotle refers to Herodotus, not to Thucydides. We could say that Thucydides in some ways when referring to the particular events of what has come to be wishes to bring forth the universal in those particulars.

From Heroic History to Political History. Rather than distinguish himself from previous inquiries and philosophers, Thucydides seems to need to establish himself as an heir of and improvement upon Homer:

• In Homeric history, the hero is the individual – Thucydidean hero is the city (polis); it is the collective action of the polis, not of an Achilles, that moves the history. However, there are still great individuals who stand above the polis and are necessarily exiled: Themistocles, Alcibiades (Thucydides himself).

• Homeric history focuses on Finitude (mortality) – Thucydidean focus on limits of the city (Athens overstretched)

• Homeric focus on Gods (as contrast with mortals) – Thucydides and the “Gods”?

• Homer: On the Greatness of the Ancestors – Thucydides on the Weakness of the Ancients

• Fate of Individual – Necessity drives the city

• Homer uses mythos and epic simile – Thucydides uses description without comparison (drawing together of like and unlike)

• Sense of Time / History as cycle – eternal, these things will return?

• Fates of the individual unfold within the structure of beings as a whole, the cosmos – depicted on the Shield of Achilles, with the inter-mixing of the City at Peace and the City and War; the fate of the city in Thucydides is also tied to the structure of beings as a whole, with the inter-mixing of rest and motion, peace and rest.

POLITICAL HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY

Thucydides as Political Philosopher (Phenomenologist): Thucydides claims his history is a possession for all time; yet, he does not address universal themes in a way that is an abstraction from the particular concerns of citizens in the world. In this approach to the political problems, Leo Strauss saw one of the clearest examples of what he would call the “natural” stand point in relation to the political (See Jaffe 291-92).

Strauss learned what philosophy truly is after attending the lectures of Heidegger. Philosophy is not a theoretical detachment from factical life, but a questioning that always seeks to return to that ground. Strauss called that ground of lived experience the “natural” stand point -- see, Strauss, Natural Right and History, beginning of chapter on “Origin of Natural Right” – must turn to political experience of natural right in its “natural” arising – in the ways we make decisions etc.

Thucydides and Plato (Political History and Philosophy): In Plato’s Timaeus, Socrates asks for a description of the “city in motion”, or at war, just as he had presented the image of the city at rest in the Republic. The philosopher has need of the political historian to describe the city in motion, or at war. Political history completes philosophy. They belong together in the same way that rest and motion belong together, or the way that the city at peace and the city at war belong together in Homer’s depiction of the Shield of Achilles.

The discussion begins with a discussion of the cosmos in the Timaeus and then proceeds to a discussion of the city in motion as requested in the Critias.

• Understanding the belonging together of the city at rest and city in motion requires seeing the city in the context of the whole, the cosmos (as per the Shield of Achilles)

• The city in motion described in the Critias is Athens in its greatness in defending from an island to the West; this as a re-writing of Thucydides who presents Athens in an offensive war with a large island to the West

Socrates accepts the accounts given in Timaeus / Critias:

• So we could say that it is only in the city in speech, or at rest that we should question the accepted accounts (myths, standards etc.)

• Critical testing of the tradition is to examine / torture it (Thucydides 1.20.1)

• People unthinkingly accept the tradition of what has been passed down by tradition

For instance, what is the accepted tradition of Hipparchus? Thucydides questions the accepted opinion (1.20; 6:54-59). What is Plato’s view of this in the Hipparchus? How does Plato present the courage of the generals, such as Nicias, in the Laches? Plato parodies the speech of Pericles in his Menexenus.

Summary:

• Homer presents the city at peace and the city at war on the Shield of Achilles – we find that there is an inter-twining of the two types of city: the city at peace includes scenes of street fights and within the city at war there are pockets of peaceful, idyllic countryside

• Plato presents the city of justice, with a presentation of injustice (Thrasymachus) inside it; Thucydides presents the unjust city, with a nod to the need for an appeal to justice, a need for an appeal to humanity.