Thucydides: The Ancient Greek Father of Scientific History

Statue of the ancient Greek historiographer Thucydides. Credit: Chris JL. CC BY 2.0/flickr

No different past historiographer the likes of Thucydides has ever written a publication arsenic insightful connected the mechanisms and morals of warfare arsenic History of the Peloponnesian War.

The past of the equipped struggle betwixt past Greece’s astir emblematic city-states, Athens and Sparta, arsenic good arsenic their allies, the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League, respectively, successful the words of Thucydides is an invaluable text. Today, it is taught not lone successful past classes but besides in governmental science, planetary relations, and doctrine assemblage courses.

The Spartans, watching Athens achieving dominance successful the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean owed to their intrepid naval force, declared a preemptive warfare to thwart their rising power.

Thucydides was an Athenian. Therefore, 1 would presume that his relationship of the Peloponnesian War was biased. That was not the case, however. Instead, helium was impartial and his penning arsenic factual arsenic possible. For that reason, helium was described by immoderate arsenic the “father of technological history.”

In his lone book, helium goes beyond the existent war. He delves into the causes from some perspectives, dissects their motivations, questions the authorities connected some sides, and judges the leaders arsenic reasonably and impartially arsenic possible.

The Peloponnesian War started successful 431 BC and ended successful 404 BC with the Spartans’ triumph and the demise of Athens’ mighty naval force. Consequently, it marked the extremity of its hegemony successful the Eastern Mediterranean. More so, it signified the extremity of the Golden Age of Athens.

However, the publication of the large past Greek historiographer ends abruptly successful 411 BC adjacent though helium was live erstwhile the warfare ended and it appears helium knew of the events that took spot aft 400 BC. There is, however, a continuation of History of the Peloponnesian War by Xenophon called Hellenica.

A beingness of experience

Little is known of the beingness of Thucydides. Most accusation astir his beingness comes from his ain writings successful the History of the Peloponnesian War. He was an Athenian surviving successful the seaside vicinity of Alimos.

It is believed helium was calved astir 460 BC and perchance died conscionable aft 400 BC. His begetter was Olorus. Olorus was not considered an Athenian sanction but was apt 1 of Thracian descent. Thucydides was related to the Athenian Miltiades, a large statesman and general. He besides owned golden mines successful Scapte Hyle, a Thracian seaside country crossed from Thasos island.

Thucydides survived the 430 to 429 BC pestilence that took the beingness of Pericles and thousands of Athenians. In 424 BC, helium was elected strategos (general) and stationed to pb the Thasos land fleet. He fought against the Spartan alliance, the Peloponnesian League, that was led by General Brasidas.

When the Peloponnesians attacked and took implicit Amphipolis, Thucydides was deemed by Athenians arsenic failing to support the city, truthful they brought him backmost to Athens to enactment him connected trial. He was sentenced to a 20-year exile. His warfare acquisition prompted him to constitute astir the Peloponnesian War. His exile gave him the accidental to question to the Peloponnese and determination determination freely truthful that helium could besides measure the struggle from the Peloponnesian League’s constituent of view.

As an Athenian, Thucydides knew precise good the reasons his compatriots went to warfare against the Spartans. Being an exile successful the Peloponnese, helium gained invaluable penetration into the reasons that led the Spartans and their allies to spell to warfare with Athens.

At the time, Athens had a antiauthoritarian governmental strategy and a fearsome naval force. Sparta,  connected the different hand, was astir almighty arsenic a onshore force, with a contented of an austere militaristic monarchy.

The archetypal 10 years of the struggle passed with the Spartans attacking by onshore and Athenians raiding by sea. After Thucydides mislaid Amphipolis to Brasidas’ army, Athenian General Cleon unsuccessfully tried to recapture it successful 422 BC. Both generals were killed successful battle, forcing the 2 sides to negociate a treaty.

A truce that lasted six years ended erstwhile Athens launched an expedition against Syracuse, which was an state of Sparta successful Sicily. With the assistance of the Spartans, the Sicilians drove retired the Athenians successful 413 BC, destroying the largest portion of their fleet.

Thucydides did not decorativeness History of the Peloponnesian Wars. For chartless reasons, the last section ends abruptly successful 411 BC. This is 7 years earlier the extremity of the war. Nevertheless, 2,500 years later, the publication remains a must-read for the world disciplines mentioned above.

Thucydides, Herodotus, and Homer today

Thucydides was the 3rd past Greek who wrote extensively astir a war. Roughly 50 years earlier him, Herodotus wrote The Persian Wars. Three centuries anterior to him, Homer wrote the Iliad, a communicative of the Trojan War. Both were influential works with invaluable penetration into past Greek and satellite past of the time. Nonetheless, neither of those was a past book.

Homer’s Iliad was an epic communicative afloat of large heroes and capricious gods. It was the starting constituent of Western literature, but a past publication it was surely not. Troy was apt real, and determination is simply a anticipation it was attacked by Achaeans sometime earlier the Greek Dark Ages. However, determination is nary notation successful past that Achilles, Paris, Helen, oregon immoderate of the protagonists of the epic poem were existent persons, arsenic astir of the protagonists are fictional characters and gods.

Herodotus’ relationship of the warfare betwixt the past Greeks and the invading Persians was a past publication for its time. While it provides priceless accusation connected the 2 armies astatine warfare and their battles arsenic observed by the author, who lived during that clip period, astir historians find it to beryllium exaggerated and occasionally inaccurate. It is besides believed the protagonists of some sides are blown retired of proportion.

This is not truthful with Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War. As Julia Kindt, Chair of the Department of Classics and Ancient History astatine the University of Sydney, wrote astir Thucydides’ instrumentality connected the Peloponnesian War:

“As a high-ranking Athenian subject commandant (or “strategos”), Thucydides brought to the task firsthand acquisition of the war, arsenic good arsenic an acute knowing of the analyzable powerfulness authorities down events connected the battlefield. His investigation of the contiguous and underlying causes of the warfare and his penetration into the considerations and motivations of those warring it stay 1 of the astir superb pieces of governmental past to date.

His crisp investigation of the benignant of forces that disturbance fashionable sentiments and thrust corporate determination making inactive resonates successful the modern world.”

The acquisition emerging from that warfare is that, essentially, determination is nary existent victor successful specified a war. The result of the Peloponnesian War was the weakening of 2 past Greek superpowers that yet led to the eventual demise of both.

The sanction of Thucydides and the mutually destructive Peloponnesian War appears erstwhile again successful modern times successful a 2017 publication entitled Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Writer Graham Allison, the manager of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, parallels the anticipation of warfare betwixt today’s superpowers, the United States and China, with the Peloponnesian War arsenic analyzed by Thucydides. Allison refers to the imaginable catastrophic results of specified struggle for some sides.

The dilemma present is whether 2 states tin debar catastrophic warfare erstwhile a rising powerfulness specified arsenic China begins to situation the ascendant state’s—in this lawsuit that of the US—control. For Thucydides, the reply is simply a resounding “no.” Indeed, this is simply a acquisition taught astir 2,500 years agone by a superb teacher.