The Peloponnesian War

C

Cypress

Well-known member
Basically, it is history's first great lesson on how democratic societies can be manipulated into a state of perpetual war by demagogues and war mongers similar to John Bolton, Donald Trump, and George Dumbya Bush.

The Peloponnesian War

The ancient Greek historian Thucydides called it "a war like no other"—arguably the greatest in the history of the world up to that time. The Peloponnesian War pitted Athens and her allies against a league of city-states headed by Sparta. Thucydides himself was an Athenian general in the fighting, sentenced to exile partway through the 27-year struggle, after losing a key battle to one of Sparta's leading commanders.

Although Thucydides lived to see the end of the war, his history breaks off in its 21st year. Other ancient writers completed the record but without Thucydides's sense of drama and matchless insight—for he is the first historian to seek the true causes of events. His eyewitness account of the war has been a classic for 24 centuries and is still studied for its profound truths about the nature of human strife.

One of the surprising aspects of the Peloponnesian War is that it sparks lively scholarly debate even today. For example, what was the true nature of Sparta's notoriously closed society? Was it, at bottom, alien to our Western values—as some historians now believe? Or did Sparta partake of a common Greek culture that made it more similar than dissimilar to Athens?

War debate at Athens and Sparta:
Thucydides records speeches that took place in citizen assemblies as war fever took hold—and cooler heads were ignored. These make a gripping narrative, comparable to the drama that led to the outbreak of World War I.

Citizens Deciding Their Own Fates
Unlike earlier great wars, the Peloponnesian War was not a conflict between kings but between citizens from different city-states, who shared the same language, gods, oracles, and festivals such as the Olympic Games. Citizen assemblies decided questions of war and peace—literally voting on their own fates, since they were the ones who had to do the fighting.

One of the major themes of the course is that as the war progressed, stasis erupted in city after city. The term stasis comes from the Greek word for standing and means faction-driven sedition or civil war. In the murderous stasis that overtook the island of Corcyra, Thucydides noted, "To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member."

Ironically, the Peloponnesian War was fought against the backdrop of Greece's Golden Age, epitomized by Athens and its astonishing innovations in government, architecture, oratory, philosophy, and the dramatic arts. One of the most remarkable aspects of this era is that culture flourished side-by-side with the politics of war—that even as Athenian citizens were honoring Aristophanes's mocking antiwar play The Acharnians by giving it first prize in a drama competition, they were debating with equal ardor whether to continue the war, and deciding overwhelmingly to do so.

source credit: Professor Kenneth W. Harl, Tulane University
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One of my visceral take-aways from Professor Harl's excellent course:

The study of military conflict is integral to any serious student of history.

The arc of western history and western civilization can, in many ways, be traced back to the results and outcomes of the Peloponnesian War. Greek democracy and the Greek city states were weakened to the point they became easy pickings for the Macedonians, leading directly to the empire of Alexander the Great, and the spread of Hellenistic culture throughout the eastern Mediterranian, the near East, and central Asia. I cannot see how the Islamic Golden Age could have occurred without the Hellenistic influence of Alexander the Great and his legacy, nor how the intellectual traditions of the ancient Greeks could have been preserved and enhanced by Muslim scholars, to later be transmitted to western Europe. All of it, arguably traced back to the outcomes of the Peloponnessian War.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
It’s also interesting to note that the Romans, when they created a Republic understood well the pitfalls of Greek Democracy.
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Much obliged for the insight.

After ancient antiquity, liberal democracy really did not start gaining steam and a desirable reputation until the 19th century.

The Roman Republic, with their citizen assemblies, did practice a form of direct democracy, though it clearly was not of the nature and scale as the Athenian democracy of the 5th century BC.

I think it is also important to remember that there was substantial variation among the Greek states. While the major city states all had constitutions and some vestiges of democratic institutions, the nature of governments varied through time and space, from oligarchies, to dictatorships, to timocracies, to direct democracies. I have learned that to talk about "Greek democracy" is to be both imprecise and inaccurate. Even Athens went through many phases of oligarchies and dictatorships. Whatever flaws democracy had, it was probably preferable to oligarchy. Sparta's form of limited consitutional democratic institutions probably was looking good to Plato and Socrates after Athens lost the conflict.

A functioning democracy obviously requires and informed citizenry and a core of inalienable civil rights, which was the beauty of our representative democratic republic.
 
Cypress said:
Much obliged for the insight.

After ancient antiquity, liberal democracy really did not start gaining steam and a desirable reputation until the 19th century.

The Roman Republic, with their citizen assemblies, did practice a form of direct democracy, though it clearly was not of the nature and scale as the Athenian democracy of the 5th century BC.

I think it is also important to remember that there was substantial variation among the Greek states. While the major city states all had constitutions and some vestiges of democratic institutions, the nature of governments varied through time and space, from oligarchies, to dictatorships, to timocracies, to direct democracies. I have learned that to talk about "Greek democracy" is to be both imprecise and inaccurate. Even Athens went through many phases of oligarchies and dictatorships. Whatever flaws democracy had, it was probably preferable to oligarchy. Sparta's form of limited consitutional democratic institutions probably was looking good to Plato and Socrates after Athens lost the conflict.

A functioning democracy obviously requires and informed citizenry and a core of inalienable civil rights, which was the beauty of our representative democratic republic.
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The interesting thing about the development of current liberal democracies is that the Iroquis Confederacy had a significant influence upon how our founding fathers founded our Democratic Republic. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...meme-says-constitution-owes-its-notion-democ/
 
Mott the Hoople said:
The interesting thing about the development of current liberal democracies is that the Iroquis Confederacy had a significant influence upon how our founding fathers founded our Democratic Republic. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...meme-says-constitution-owes-its-notion-democ/
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A good point.

From what I understand, the framers of the Constitution studiously considered the Roman Republic, the Athenian democracy, and the Iriquois Confederacy as models to emulate. They may have - at least in part - adopted the federalism of the Iriquois Confederacy, and they obviously adopted a hybrid of the Roman and Greek systems - the representative democracy of the Roman Republic, and we have some elements of direct citizen participation such as ballot initiatives as part of our legacy to the Greeks.
 
Cypress said:
A good point.

From what I understand, the framers of the Constitution studiously considered the Roman Republic, the Athenian democracy, and the Iriquois Confederacy as models to emulate. They may have - at least in part - adopted the federalism of the Iriquois Confederacy, and they obviously adopted a hybrid of the Roman and Greek systems - the representative democracy of the Roman Republic, and we have some elements of direct citizen participation such as ballot initiatives as part of our legacy to the Greeks.
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John Adams did an extensive study of all historical republics up to that point in time. He then wrote an extensive work called A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. He completed the first volume in time for the Consitutional Convention.
 
Howard the Duck said:
John Adams did an extensive study of all historical republics up to that point in time. He then wrote an extensive work called A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. He completed the first volume in time for the Consitutional Convention.
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Thanks, that is some valuable intel I did not know about.
 
This is Sparta!

Having wrapped up the video course, Professor Harl gave me a newfound respect for Sparta.
Modern scholarship has basically dismissed Sparta as hopelessly regressive, reactionary, conservative, and even totalitarian compared to the relatively open, dynamic, intellectual, and liberal democracy of Athens.

A re-examination of the historical record apparently shows that Sparta was dynamic, resilient, and by the standards of the day did have democratic institutions, and a high degree of respect for political and civil rights for citizens. Moving forward, I will watch the movie 300 with enhanced respect for Sparta!
 
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