TEN THINGS I LEARNED BY SKIMMING THUCYDIDES
Posted byJohn Nagl
January 26, 2023
EDITOR’S NOTE: The current temporary theme we are using only credits a single author. This article was written by John Nagl and Matthew Woessner.
Authors’ Note: One of the hallowed rites of passage each year at the Army War College is reading portions of Thucydides’ 2500-year-old The History of the Peloponnesian War. Most students find it extremely worthwhile, some to their surprise. Many scholars regard The Peloponnesian War as the first work of international relations since it attributes agency to human actions rather than to the will of the gods. A deep reading of Thucydides also requires students to navigate between the opposing pitfalls of the use of history: cherry-picking evidence to come to simplistic “lessons” or giving up any hope of drawing insights from such a distant time. Of course, every year there are always one or two students who do not make the effort. The following is a satirical portrait of one such student’s not-so-careful read of history along with the response of a more discerning classmate. (All citations come from Robert B. Strassler’s translation The Landmark Thucydides.)
The following list was found on the backside of a stained Redd’s Barbeque take-out menu a day before oral comprehensive exams at the Army War College in two separate sets of handwriting–a short list from one student and commentary from another.
Ten Things I Learned by Skimming Thucydides
It’s the day before oral comp exams. While my gullible classmates have been busy rereading Thucydides, I skimmed the text (It’s only a lot of reading if you do it!) and to be on the safe side, rewatched the movie 300. From what I could gather by flipping through the book, these are the top ten lessons I’m taking into oral comprehensive exams from The History of the Peloponnesian War:
1. War is predictable, and anyone paying attention can see how it will turn out.
The Spartan king Archidamus, preparing to invade Attica, disagreed with this assessment, as does almost anyone who has fought in any war. As Archidamus argued, “The course of war cannot be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dedicated by the impulse of the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised preparation, a wise apprehension has often been able to make head against superior numbers.” (2:11). Any resemblance between Archidamus’ warning and the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and subsequent events in the Middle East is purely coincidental.
2. When a war is going your way, press your advantage to absolute victory.
After a major Athenian victory at Pylos in the seventh year of the war, Spartan envoys urged the Athenian Assembly to accept terms of an armistice that gave Athens much of what it wanted from the war: “You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honor and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.” (4:17). That Athens did not take this good advice can be inferred from the fact that we are only about halfway through the book at this point; that Athens would never again be in such an advantageous position vis-a-vis Sparta will become clear below.
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/skimming-thucydides/
