A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

Thucydides's famously difficult text is brought to life with this translation by Robert Strassler. All scholars of ancient Greece--whether amateurs or professionals--should count themselves as blessed and lucky for this very reader-friendly translation.

The reader-friendliness is manifested by the comprehensive footnotes that accompany the text (though many of the footnotes were unnecessarily repetitive; I did not need to keep reading explanations of what a paean was or the procedures for building trophies and requesting the return of the dead after battle), the very informative maps (we like maps), the short and sweet summaries that accompanied paragraphs while still inviting the reader to go further in depth by paying close and specific attention to the text and the dates that accompany the relation of the story. Reader-friendliness could have been augmented, quite a bit more by moving the appendices to the front and making them part of the introduction to the story and by moving the timeline to the front as well. These are very informative and helpful portions in the book and readers will do well not to skip over them.

When it comes to the actual reading of Thucydides, I was struck most by his stark and revelatory discussion of the effects the revolution in Corcyra had on society:

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression that it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Spartans. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same...  Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

The words are powerful because they are so condemning of past actions while at the same time so forbidding as present societies contemplate the chaos that descended on Corcyra and that could conceivably descend on any society anywhere. The general nature of Thucydides's condemnation serves as a warning to the generations that came after him; what was written about Corcyra could be written about them as well.

Of course, the Melian Dialogue looms large in the mind of the reader as well; it is in many ways the ultimate statement of political realism as applied to international relations (the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must, as Thucydides records). While the Melians were correct in pointing out that Athenian ruthlessness would have negative consequences, the Athenians prove themselves in the dialogue to be quite dispassionate and cold-eyed about the acquisition and exercise of power. That they lost their empire does not necessarily mean that they were wrong in what they observed about the interplay between city-states or that we should ignore their observations when it comes to contemplating the interplay between nation-states in our time.

And then there was the expedition against Syracuse--a disastrous venture that helped wreck Athenian power. I suppose that it might be en vogue to analogize this to the American regime change and reconstruction effort in Iraq; Matt Yglesias makes the analogy here. It is, of course, important to remember that while the expedition against Syracuse does serve as a useful cautionary tale anytime that a hegemonic nation-state threatens to get too big for its britches, part of the reason the Athenians lost was that in the Syracusans, the Athenians had tuly met their match. In commenting on the failure of the Spartans to press their advantage after the Athenian loss of Euboea (8.96), Thucydides makes this precise point:

. . . But here, as on so many other occasions, the Spartans proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to be at war with. The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and want of energy of the Spartans as contrasted with the dash and enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service, especially to a maritime empire like Athens. Indeed this was shown by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character, and also most successful in combating them.

This fundamental similarity between the Athenians and the Syracusans ought to be remembered as one of the keys to the Athenian downfall in the aftermath of Athens's disastrous expedition. No such similarity exists between Americans and Iraqis (each side has its strengths and weaknesses but the societies themselves are in no way, shape or form alike). (If one wishes to make snarky comparisons between the Peloponnesian War generally and the current reconstruction effort in Iraq, one might observe that the real winner in the former situation, for her ability to play the Greek city-states off against one another, was Persia. Then one might segue into nail-biting fretting that the real winner resulting from the regime change in Iraq is Iran. If someone does wish to pick up this snarky thread of argument, I hope he/she/they will have the good grace to give me a hat tip, much as I believe that there are huge differences between the two situations--the superficial similarities will still no doubt be as difficult to resist as they were in analogizing the war in Iraq to the expedition in Syracuse.)

Along with Edward Gibbon, Thucydides is one of the few historians whose work is truly memorable. As difficult as his work is to get through, it is a splendid marriage between the kind of historian Thucydides was and the kind of historical event that he chronicled. Reading his account of the Peloponnesian War leads to all sorts of "Aha!" moments, as one notices and appreciates anew the many events within the Peloponnesian War that helped shape our modern understanding of the principles of war and statecraft. That such a work is now presented to us in so pleasing and understandable a manifestation is a priceless bonus and a tremendous boon to our understanding of one of the key events in ancient Greek history.