Thucydides: The Reinvention of History Book

Exploring a War Through the Eyes of an Historian
22 February 2020 - Berri

I guess it was time for me to read some non-fiction, since I have been reading quite a few fiction works of late (though I generally don't put the ancient works that I read into the category of non-Fiction, namely because in my mind they fall into a completely different category - namely ancient works - anyway, ancient authors tend to have a completely different style to modern academic authors).

Well, I found this book in a second-hand bookshop (where I tend to find a bulk of my books by the way) and I am always interested in reading some modern non-fiction on the ancient world, especially since academics do tend to put a different slant on the topics. Well, it seems as if Kagan is an expert on the Peloponnesian War, since I suspect that he teaches the topic at university, and of course academics do tend to like writing books about the subject that they are teaching, even if it is just to flog their books off to the students in their classes.

His argument is that Thucydides is the first proper historian, namely because Herodotus sort of just made things up as he was going along. Okay, maybe that is being a bit too harsh on the Father of History, but then again he is also referred to as the Father of Lies as well, and when some commentators refer to Herodotus as a source, they generally laugh and simply say 'yeah right'. Okay, maybe that was just Simon Whistler when he was talking about the pyramids, but I sort of do tend to agree with him (especially since Herodotus completely ignores the existence of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah).

The problem is that a bulk of this book is just going over the war, with a few references to how Thucydides simply reported on the events. Mind you, Thucydides didn't write a chronicle on the entire war, but rather just to the end of the disastrous Sicilian expedition, and then he died. Well, maybe not, because it is also a possibility that the Sicilian expedition, and its ending, was the whole purpose of his book, and that he was showing us how Athens got to the point where they pretty much lost their entire navy, and also a huge number of soldiers.

Another thing that Kagan explores is the nature of the three main generals that were leading Athens during the war: Pericles, Cleon, and Nicias. Well, okay, we also have Alcibadies, the one who encouraged people to go and attempt to capture Sicily, with grand dreams of creating a pan-Mediterranean empire, but he really only focuses on the conduct of these particular generals. In a way, it seems that hesitation was the main problem here. Both Pericles and Nicias were fighting the war by playing it safe, whereas Cleon would boldly go out and attack. Well, sort of because despite resounding victories, Cleon was still a pretty bad general. In fact, it was Demosthenes that won the battles that Cleon was credited in winning. In fact, it was the capture of the Spartan force on Pylos that allowed the war to last as long as it did.

Pericles, however, was fighting a defensive war, which wasn't working. The idea was to hide behind the walls and let the Spartans ravage the countryside. Well, they might sound like it would work, except that it didn't since it drained the treasury, and the Spartans were more than happy to just ravage the land - they controlled the land, which meant that they controlled Athens' food supplies and money. As such, the quick war that Pericles envisioned never came about.

Nicias, on the other hand, used a similar cautious tactic in Sicily, which resulted in their opponents reinforcing their cities, and for the Peloponnesians to quickly send troops. He also relied upon the possibility of allies helping them, which eventually did not happen. As such, even though the suggestion was that they could have won on Sicily, the fact that Nicias didn't take hold of the advantage that they had resulted in them losing that advantage. Of course, when things turned sour, the last thing he could have done was retreat because, well, just such an action would label him a coward meaning that a return to Athens simply was not possible (and losing battles in Ancient Greece really didn't go down too well with the people).

Yeah, let's talk about allies. They tend to be a problem because allies tend to drag you into wars that you don't want to be dragged into. Germany faced that problem back in 1914 when all of their allies started declaring war on each other, forcing them to jump in as well. Sure, it was a powder keg, and there had already been two wars fought in the Balkans, but this third one ended up exploding beyond all expectations, resulting in one of the bloodiest wars in history. This was a similar case in Ancient Greece, with a system of alliances that resulted in both Athens and Sparta coming to a head. It was battles between other city-states that eventually called in the two big powers to fight against each other.

Mind you, the one oddity that still sits in my mind is this whole thing with the Spartans captured at Pylos. Why is it that the Spartans, who were known for their motto of returning with their shield, or on it, were so desperate to get their troops back. Surely they would have returned in dishonour, and probably been executed. Why haggle with the Athenians over their return - if they allowed themselves to be captured, surely that would have meant that they weren't good soldiers, and surely the Spartan response should have been 'kill them, we don't want such soldiers anyway'.