Angry Planet - Why an Ancient Greek Historian Is Still Taught at West Point

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

More than 2,400 years ago, Thucydides of Athens wrote about his city's war with Sparta. Today, that book is still read at military academies all over the world.Why?That's what we asked Dr. Cliff Rogers of West Point.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Because of the ability to see the big picture of a very different period and a very different time, it's that remove that helps us avoid the trap of thinking that the future will be like the recent past. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts, Matthew Galt and Jason Fields.

Hello and welcome to War College. I'm Jason Fields. Matthew Galt is listening in, but you won't hear him today. A war between the world's greatest democracy and a rigid, ruthless society raged for decades. States that had nothing to do with the conflict were made to choose sides. cities were burned to the ground, every man and boy executed. And one man chronicled it all, the Cydides of Athens. His story of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta is one of the earliest and greatest works of history.

The book is considered so important, 2,400 years later, it's still taught at military academies. Joining us today to talk about it is Dr. Cliff Rogers of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He's joining us in his capacity as a private citizen. He's not speaking on behalf of the U.S. government. I just want to make that clear. Dr. Rogers, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure to be here. Do you mind starting at the beginning?

I think a lot of people aren't going to know who Thucydides was and what his work is all about. Do you mind just sort of briefly describing it? Not at all. So Thucydides is generally considered the second historian. Of course, we have historical records from earlier eras. We have historical inscriptions about the Battle of Meghido in ancient Egypt, for example. We have the Bible, things like that. But a historian in a modern sense, someone who records and explains the past is really something that we've inherited from the ancient Greeks. And at least of the surviving texts, the first is Herodotus. and the second, who was also a military historian, I should add, his main focus being the Persian wars, and then Thucydides, another military historian in the sense that his focus was war, in particular the great war that you mentioned between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians.

And so Thucydides was an Athenian. He was an upper-class Athenian and aristocratic Athenian, and partly because of that status and because of properties that his family had in the north of Greece. He was quite wealthy and very well educated and served as a general during the Peloponnesian war on the Athenian side, but he failed in his mission and was exiled as a result, which is something the Athenians tended to do. They could be very harsh towards their own leaders. leaders when their leaders didn't succeed, which is actually a theme of Thucydides and something that

he brings out as a danger of democratic governments. Anyway, so Thucydides then was able to travel throughout the Greek world during his period of exile, so he was able to hear some of the Peloponnesian side of the war from people who had participated in it, and of course he had many connections in Athens. So he was able to get two sides of the war. And right from the beginning of war, when he was a young man, he recognized that it was the greatest war that had taken place in what he conceived of as human history. Obviously, you didn't know anything about what might have happened in China, but he did compare it to the wars that he'd read about in Herodotus and in Homer and pointed out that this was a huge undertaking when the strongest states that he

conceived, which were the Athenian Empire and the Philippinesian League, went to war against each other. And he saw that that was going to be an epic conflict. And so right from the beginning of the war, he started taking notes and talking to people and preparing to write a history. In Greek history basically means inquiry. That's the word history that we have comes from the Greek word for inquiry. So he was making inquiries about the conflict throughout its course. And and compiled those into a really superb explanation and narrative of the great conflict between the two blocks of power. So how does he tell the story? Is it episodic? I know that it includes speeches that he probably didn't hear himself. But just if he could give sort of a sense of the style, it would be great.

It's essentially a chronological narrative. He proceeds by. winters and summers of the first year of the war, the second year of the war, and so on. And there is some movement from place to place as there has to be in order to construct a narrative of a war that took place in multiple places at the same time. But he gives you a story, essentially, and he does it so well that you're able to follow the course of events and make sense of them, which he rarely does by sort of pausing and giving an aside and explaining something in his own voice. He has a few sentences where he does that. Almost always, though, he follows the policy of show you, don't tell you, and explains what happens. And he does omit things, some important things, some of which may have been

because he didn't know, others of which he clearly did know, but chose to admit because they didn't fit with what he wanted you to take away from it or the overall pattern that he was trying to cause his readers to appreciate without having to outline the pattern for you. He wanted to give you the events and let you learn from them by essentially induction. So how did he set up his protagonists? What is his description of the Athenians versus the Peloponnesian League? Being an Athenian himself, he understood both the strengths and the weaknesses of Athens, which in both cases he attributed largely to their democratic constitution and nature. And he talks in terms of instability is one way to look at it.

That's sort of the negative pitch or energy as being characteristic of the Athenian. And really, those are sort of the flip sides of the same coin. The Athenians are always trying to do things, always trying to take the initiative, always trying to gain power, always trying to gain wealth. I think it's a nice sort of a side note when he says that among the Athenians, there's no shame in being poor, but there is shame in not struggling against poverty. And that kind of gives you a sense of who they are as a people, that they're commercial, their naval, they're proud, they're patriotic, they are innovative,

but that can also make them somewhat capricious. Whereas the Spartans are depicted as much more interested in stability, very sort of laconic. Of course, that's the word laconic basically means Spartan etymologically, because Laconia is the Spartan homeland. And so men of few words, men of gravitas of dignity, and tremendous fighters in land warfare. So they are the only Greek polis or city state in which the bulk of the population of the citizen population are essentially professional soldiers because the Spartans have defeated in the past and essentially turned into serfs part of the, neighboring population who conduct the agricultural labor that supports the Spartans to focus on being soldiers. The Athenian pride themselves on being the second best soldiers in the Greek

world without having to spend their lives in drill or martial exercises or focusing on being soldiers. They are the much more typical, they're sort of the, maybe the best example of the more typical Greek pattern that we've sort of inherited in the model of the citizen soldiers who don't spend their time in arms, don't think of themselves as primarily soldiers, but definitely do think of themselves as soldiers when their state needs them, and as capable of serving their country in arms and of being very effective in doing so. When we're looking at, there are a couple of specific examples that I remember my own professors made sure to bring up to tell you a little bit about who each of these groups were,

one of which is the Mealian Dialogue, and which is, it's about a city called Milos, and it's a series of embassies discussing the surrender of the city. Do you mind taking us through it a little bit? So Melos was an island off the southern, southeastern coast of Greece. And so in Greece, in a period long before the Peloponnesian War, there had been a lot of colonization where the major Poles, the major city states, had during a period of great population growth and dealing with the problem of limited. arable land, had sent colonies all over the whole Mediterranean and the Black Sea even. And in particular, the Ionian Greeks, including the Athenians, had done a lot of that. The Dorian Greeks, including the Spartans, had done less of that, although they had done some. And Melos was a Dorian colony.

So it was by sort of ethnicity related to Sparta, but it was an island. And almost every island was not Dorian colony, but rather an Ionian colony, and almost every island had been brought into the Delian League, which was a league of mainly islanders formed to resist the Persians, which had sort of transmogrified in the years before the Peloponnesian War into the Athenian Empire. It was nominally a league in which the member states had votes, but in practice it was it was controlled by Athens. And during a period of truce within the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians basically decided to conquer Melos because they didn't think it was safe, at least this is how Pucydides explains their thinking. They didn't think it was safe

to their empire to let an island not be subject to Athenian domination. But Melos was technically a neutral state, and the Malians basically made the argument that it was, was unjust for Athens to attack them, which Athens had to do in order to subdue them. And the Athenians basically responded that of the gods we believe and of men we know that they rule wherever they can and that by our asserting our domination over you, it's not an unjust thing. It's just a natural part of human nature. And furthermore, because we are basically just by our own lights, we Athenians would like to conquer you with the minimum of bloodshed and pain to you,

to which the Malian said, well, we've maintained our liberty for hundreds of years, and we're not just going to give up because you're more powerful than we are. And there's a long back and forth given by Thucydides in the form of speeches, which, unlike some of the other speeches he gives, he clearly can't have heard these or probably had a good source for them. And it's pretty clear that he is just using that as a rhetorical device to explain how he understood in general the thinking on both sides. And the Malians ultimately say we would rather take the risk of destruction

than give up our liberty. And so the Athenians destroy them and literally kill all the men and boys and enslave the women and children, which is a pretty common feature of Greek warfare, actually. So that's Thucydides presenting the Athenians, although he would also say this of the Spartans, as practitioners of what modern political scientists call Realpolitik, which is essentially the politics of power,

being what structures the actions of state with very little reference to justice, which is usually used only as a justification rather than a motivation. I think Thucydides is actually overplaying that point, but that's the depiction that he's giving there. It's something that you're hearing from 2400 years ago that certainly has legs now. Although I wonder about the baldness of it

and the Athenian line versus, let's say, Real politic aside, mostly there's a fig leaf as to Cassus Belli, something that actually tries to make it sound like a battle or wars about something else. Sorry, go ahead. Exactly. And so remember I mentioned that Thucydides presents this as an exchange of speeches, and he prefaces it by having the Athenian, basically a group of Athenian leaders speaking to a group of Malian leaders. and saying, hey, you know what, let's just talk straight here between us leaders and not involve the people of Malos. If we did, we would give you all kinds of flowery rhetoric, and we would talk about how just we are and so on, but we both know that that's not really what's at issue here, so let's just skip it.

And the Malians do in their speech try and say make some arguments of justice, but they get entirely ignored by the Athenians in this rather artificial construct. So in most speeches in Thucydides, the sort of classic arguments about the fig leafs or, you know, or not really fig leafs or actual motivations, but the arguments of justice are made on both sides. So the Malian dialogue, though, actually comes fairly well along into the war. And one of Thucydides' core arguments is that is that, as he says, war is a harsh teacher, and that by that stage in the war, even if the arguments that were presented in terms of justice and right early in the war were meant sincerely, by this point, we're just sort of past that. Now, I don't necessarily know that that was true,

but that's his argument. For one thing, the Malian dialogue takes place shortly after, or not not that shortly after, but it takes place after another somewhat related argument, which is the Maitelian debate, which is where the Athenians having besieged and conquered the city of Maitelinae on Lesbos, which had rebelled against them in the middle of the war, not during a period of truce, are deciding whether to treat people of Maitelene in the way that they ultimately do treat the people of Milos. and it's actually one of my very favorite parts of the book and something I do go over in depth with my cadets. And in that case, it's very interesting because a core part of the argument, which is basically, again, about whether to kill and enslave all the rebels or to spare many of them.

and the side that's arguing for more mercy, and I think actually is motivated in part by a desire for mercy. And I think, and not just I think, it's, I can prove that actually Thucydides agreed with the relevance of justice and mercy in that case. But the argument is entirely and explicitly framed in terms of expediency. So the guy who's arguing for mercy, diodotus, says, let's not look at mercy. Let's not look at justice. Let's only look at what's best for Athens. Whereas the guy who wants to kill everybody, Cleon, claims to be arguing for justice, which not for mercy, just for justice. And that's actually a rather brilliant rhetorical technique on diodotis's part, that he, even though he's arguing for the more just course, doesn't make that argument. And I think it's implicit in lucidities that what's going on there is the auditus knows that if he does make the case of justice, then Cleon will just accuse him of being weak and then the Athenian voters, because Athens is a direct democracy and the citizens themselves are going to make the choice about what they do to the Maitelenians. So if Deodotis makes

the case for mercy, Cleon will just accuse him. of being weak and then tell the voters that if they vote for him, vote for mercy, that they're being weak and that they are therefore unfit to be the rulers of an empire. And so diadidas, even though he's arguing for mercy, he never mentions that so that he can't be accused of weakness. And he just says, hey, this is what's best for us in the long run, because if we kill all these people, they won't pay us any taxes in the future. And we'll also be incentivizing the next city we besiege to resist to the bitter end because they'll know there's no point in trying to surrender before they're all dead because we'll just kill them anyway. So that's the kind,

and the rhetoric that's used on both sides is very skillful. Fucydides is a master of rhetoric. Most ancient Greeks were to one degree or another, especially Athenians, were masters of rhetoric. And that's one of the real values of studying Fucydides is that he often gives you two well-presented, conflicting arguments. And as you work through them, that can give you practice in and skill in, recognizing which of two seemingly solid arguments is actually not. And there's a few more skills in life more valuable than that. Just to talk about meddling just for one last second, Midolene? How did you say it? I know you said it properly. I actually, I have to admit, I don't actually speak Greek, so I might not be presenting or pronouncing it properly, but I believe it's

myelina. If I'm remembering right, they assembly, the Athenian assembly actually comes up with both answers, right? I mean, and they have to, I mean, first they decide that yes, they should kill all the men and boys and sell everybody else into slavery. And then they make the decision that no, they shouldn't. And it's very dramatic. Right. And see, the thing is that Cucydides only gives you the second set of speeches. He says they had initially decided to go with a harsher penalty. And then he says, and what caused them to call a second vote, which they rarely do, was that they felt bad about the first decision, clearly sort of from a moral standpoint, right? So Diadotis, who's the one who's arguing for mercy, again, he knows that the emotion is on

his side and that justice and mercy are both on his side, but he chooses not to use those as part of his argument because he knows, because of the way that he knows his rhetorical opponent will turn that against him. And if he can persuade people that what they're voting for, that they want to vote for, because of the moral considerations. But if he can persuade them that they should vote for it without taking into account the moral thing, then they can feel tough and rational in doing what they want to do really and what he actually wants them to do also instead of feeling good and compassionate. And he believes that his Athenian audience is much more likely to act in a way that will make them feel tough and rational than in a way that would make them feel good and merciful.

The next thing, and the most important thing, I guess, for the people who are listening to this show, is why still teach something from a war that took 30 years to fight and happened 2,400 years ago? And what do you hope your students will get out of it? Well, I would be hard-pressed to give you a better answer to that than the one that Thomas Hobbes gave. I'm sure you know Thomas Hobbs, the author of Leviathan and other tracks on political theory from the early modern period in England, but you probably don't know that actually his first book was a translation of Thucydides. And in his translation in the introduction, he said, and I'll sort of modernize the English for you a bit, but he says that Thucydides is the most skillful historian that ever wrote, the reason whereof I take to be this. he fills his narration with that choice of matter and orders them with that judgment,

and with such perspicuity and efficacy expresses himself that, as Plutarch says, he makes his auditor a spectator, for he sets his reader in the Assembly of the People and in the Senate and at their debating, and in the streets at their sedition, and in the field at their battles. So look how much a man of understanding might have added to his experience if he had then lived, a beholder of their proceedings, and familiar with the men and business of the time. so much almost may he profit now by attentive reading of the same here written he may from the narrations draw out lessons to himself and of himself be able to trace the drifts and counsels of the actors to their seat so in other words what lucidizes is trying to do is give you experience

and as we know wisdom can come from experience although of course you can also have experience that brings you no wisdom. It depends on whether you reflect on your experience. But every human being has only a very limited opportunity to gain experience. We just don't live that long, and while we are alive, we tend to not have, in much of our daily life, we don't have a very broad perspective. We don't see the big picture of what's going on. Cucydides gives us the big picture of a large block of experience. And because of his skill and also because of the distance from our own day, both of those serve to increase the signal to noise ratio. He doesn't give us too many of the details. He gives us the details we need to understand in order to explain

the big movements of the war and to understand some little things about human nature. But because of the ability to see the big picture of a very different period and a very different time, it's that remove that helps us avoid the trap of thinking that the future will be like the recent past, which sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. It's only by having a broad view of the history of mankind that you can get a sense of which things are indeed consistent across all of human experience and which things are much more determined by particular circumstances. To give you a quick example, if you think about somebody who was preparing for war in the period before World War II in the 1930s, if they look back at the past, which would of course be World War I,

they might think, oh, well, the lesson is that the defense is the stronger form of warfare and that attrition is the way that war is fought, and that's even reinforced, and that that would then lead to potentially disaster when you get to the slightly different period of World War II, and you see that offense and rapid action are what bring victory in 1940, say. And then if you skip forward a little bit and you say, all right, well, how about somebody in 1960 looking back at World War II

and thinking, oh, well, so the way war is is it's all, about the mass mobilization of society and fighting to the bitter end. And then that soldier now has to look forward to fighting the Vietnam War, where those lessons might not serve them well at all. You need to have the broader perspective in order to see whether a set of lessons that you might draw from a particular anecdote, a particular part of history, are likely to be good lessons that are enduring lessons. So its very ancientness is what makes it current?

It's very ancientness is one of the things that helps you see from other periods that you look at, which parts of them are going to be current and which parts may not, which parts of them are enduring and reliable, which parts of the experience that you observe is eternal and which part is actually culturally conditioned or chronologically determined by the state of technology or just sort of the habits of mind and customs that have emerged in the recent past. And if you have exposure to the more distant past, you know, it may not be that way in the future, just as it wasn't necessarily that way in the more distant past, or even today, that people may be different from the ones you experience in your daily life.

they were different in the past, they may be different in another place as well, but different in some ways and consistent in others. And which of those is which is something that you strongly benefit from by studying the ancient period. I would add that one other thing is particularly for officers. The greatest challenge of effective combat leadership is probably what Klausovets emphasized, although he didn't actually use this exact phrase, but the problem of the fog of war. And the fact that decisions have to be based on fragmentary and conflicting evidence. One of the great things about studying the ancient period and Thucid disease included is that you face similar problems with very limited information from often bias sources, from conflicting evidence. And so the exercise is trying to see through the mists of time can be excellent training for a future in which you need to peer through the fog of war. Dr. Rogers, thank you so much for joining us.

to talk this through. That's been my pleasure. Thanks for listening to this week's show. If you enjoyed it, let the world know by leaving us a review on iTunes. It helps others to find the show, or at least that's what they tell us. We're putting transcripts of most shows

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