A Possession for All Time: How Should We Read Thucydides? | Hacker News Reader

A Possession for All Time: How Should We Read Thucydides?

laphamsquarterly.org

65 pointsdiodorus11 comments

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Why Classics

In the book Fourth of the Peloponnese Wars

Thucydides tells the story of his unsuccessful expedition

Among the long talk of the chiefs,

Battles, sieges and plagues,

dense network of intrigues,

diplomatic procedures

This episode is like a pin

in the forest

Athenian colony Amfipolis

fell into the hands of Brazydas

Because Thucydides had been late for the rescue

He paid to his hometown

with a lifelong exile

Exiles of all times

Know what price it is

Generals of recent wars

if there is a similar affair

whine on the knees before posterity

Praise their heroism

and innocence

accuse subordinates

envious colleagues

Unfriendly winds

Thucydides says only

he had seven ships

it was winter

and he sailed swiftly

Czesław Miłosz [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz

(From the wiki text:)

"[...] an exhibition celebrating Miłosz's life and work, entitled Exile as Destiny."

The lede isn't just buried here, its almost unmentioned. At the end of this war the Athenian empire was no more and Athens was reduced to being a vassal state and didn't recover its prominence until the Greek revolution in the 19th century. Bad judgement, exceptionalism and overreaching driven by demagoguery lead to the end of an empire--not for the last time.

This isn’t an entirely accurate picture. In Hanink’s first book, she demonstrates how the classical Athens that we think of today was largely an invention of Athens in the fourth century BCE.

To oversimplify a bit, although Athens lost its military hegemony at the end of the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Athenianness maintained a powerful cultural influence for centuries.

I think the lede, then, is clear from the first paragraph: classical Athens (synechdochically represented through Thucydides here) is a construct that can be used for diverse ends, and we need to pay careful to attention to who uses it and how.

The article totally misses that he's important to epidemiologists because it's the earliest good description of a plague. He spends several pages on the Plague of Athens in 430BCE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Athens

The Melian dialogue (basically might makes right) is probably the earliest and one of the most realistic descriptions of the rationale used by conquerors to justify their actions [0]. People haven't changed much in the nearly 2500 years since Thucydides' death, it's just been a constant stream of new excuses in the form of race, religion, and nationalism. That, in a period of history that we believe to be significantly less advanced than our own, he laid bare an essential truth is a credit to him. He deserves a place on the bookshelves of all, right beside Machiavelli's "The Prince".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#The_Melian_Dial...

The words there are perhaps the most chilling ever penned - "since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Incidentally, the Venus of Milo statue was found in the island a couple of centuries ago. It used to be a major Louvre museum attraction.

Haven't read Thucydides yet, but some of the reasons listed for reading him, seems to fit as well to Plutarch also. I think there may be more variety in Plutarch though, because he wrote about a more wider variety of people and things.

There's a world of difference. Plutarch is - as an old friend of mine once said - "an old club bore telling rambling anecdotes about famous men". Thucydides work is incisive and focused.

Both are enjoyable though.

I read his History of the Peloponnesian War in the tenth grade. Thank you Mr Chrome!

I remember really enjoying it but it may have been my teacher.

Not like Steve Bannon

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