RVF Book Club September: Thucydides - The History of the Peloponnesian War

[PolymathGuru]

So then this book was written in 431 B.C.
Politicians, military leaders ect have read this book and books like it.

But we continue to have the same problems.
The same wars, the same declines ect.
That's ground enough to think that maybe this book/knowledge is outdated and no longer has the same application.
Following the same path as everyone before is the reason why we continue to make the same mistakes.

From your previous post on the other thread, you have displayed your interest in more contemporary books.

I'd be more interested in books that are a little bit more update.
Yes, there are some classic books.
But I feel like there is a hype to read this old idea. From those old idea, people get a good base line for information...It also brings a slightly elitist attitude, where I feel like many people are reading the books just to say they read the books and are thereafter, "cultured"

How about some books that are more up to date.
New takes and improvisations on old ideas. The world is much more complicated now.
Instead of reading long draw out entry level books...we could find some books at are more complex in the current issues.
I feel like they are much more beneficial.

A couple examples.
Some of these are books I have bought a long time ago and read, and some of them are books I've bough and haven't gotten around too.


The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big On


The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm


Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars


Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy


Long Gray Lines: The Southern Military School Tradition

However Sonsowey had made an expressed interest in reading the classics.

There are many men who love to read here and have posted great reviews of classic books that have generated a lot of discussion.

I had the idea to get together an RVF book club. I am open to suggestions but my idea is basically this:

Have a RVF Book Club Thread. We focus on a different book each month. Via PMs we decide on very high-quality classic literature that deals with masculinity in some way that we think is enlightening. Those who have already read the book will begin the month posting their takes on the book, and those who have not can contribute by writing and discussing their impressions as they read through the book.

I would hope to focus on timeless classics that have already showed staying power, things like Greek and Roman texts, Sun Tzu, Nietzsche, Carlyle, real classics. Doing this would help us all build a stronger basis in our history and develop a stronger set of common references in our discussions here about masculinity.

After a year we will have read through 12 books and hopefully everyone will have benefitted from it.

Would anyone be interested in this? Get in touch via PM or comment here and we'll try to see who would like to help lead some discussions on some classic books and we can hopefully get started in a few days for September if there's interest.

Obviously your interests for reading classical literature isn't desired.

The world isn't as simply now.
These books are classics, baselines, entry level.

How does this book apply now?

So then this book was written in 431 B.C.

But we continue to have the same problems.
The same wars, the same declines ect.
That's ground enough to think that maybe this book/knowledge is outdated and no longer has the same application.
Following the same path as everyone before is the reason why we continue to make the same mistakes.

One of the advantages of reading classic books is they are cheap. They are open domain for the most part. Even if you couldn't download it or buy a book for some reason, they are almost definitely in a public library.

Another advantage is more emphasis on masculine themes. A lot of books today run a greater risk of being politically correct.

While I am not against contemporary written literature, a lot of it just doesn't appeal to me. I remember being in High School and College and hating works given to us which were for the most part contemporary.

If you feel that the classic aren't for you, why don't you just create a separate book club for contemporary literature? If the books you list are worth people's attention, then people will join.

 

[Sonsowey]

I've read a bit more, really listening to the librivox audiobook. I think the entire work is 20 hours via librivox, I'm 1:40 in.

This part of the book I do not remember well.

Thucydides outlines the Battle of Sybota:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sybota

The parties here are Corinth, Athens, and Corcyra, the three largest naval powers in Greece at the time.

Corcyra had maintained a policy of isolation, not seeking to entangle itself with foreign affairs, but also in this way failing to make enough friends to successfully rebel against Corinth.

They came to Athens and asked for friendship and help in defeating Corinth. They proposed that the two of them allied together, Athens and Corcyra, two of the three largest naval powers, would be of an immense benefit to Athens, as many sensed that war was growing near and Athens would do much better to have a powerful naval ally rather than allow the possibility of Corinth re-conquering her rebellious colony and using the combined naval power against Athens at some future date. Athens, however, already had signed a peace treaty with Corinth after initial conflicts in Greece that preceded the full outbreak of the Peloponnesian war.

Athens decided to ally themselves with Corcyra but not offensively attack Corinth, but only aid Corcyra in defending itself in case of an attack. Corinth did indeed attack and after the largest sea battle in Greek history at that time, there was a draw. Corinth inflicted more damage, destroyed more boats, and took more prisoners of war, yet was unable to subdue Corcyra.

Corinth was shocked and after the battle had ended, yet the combatants were still there, they sent emissaries to the Athenians asking if they truly wished to break their truce and declare war on each other. Athens said that they would not interfere with any other Corinthian action, but that with Corcyra as their ally, they would simply defend Corcyra. The Corinthians went back home, and Corinth and Athens would soon come to blows again and later truly set off the Peloponnesian war.

Listening to the speeches so far has been the most enjoyable thing, the reasoning used is quite unlike our own time.

 

[Andreas]

How can I get this book in Greek text?

 

[Paracelsus]

Some random thoughts thus far:

Page 17 of Book One:

Consequently security was the chief political principle in these governments, and no great action ever came out of them - nothing, in fact, that went beyond their immediate local interests, except for the tyrants in Sicily, who rose to great power. So for a long time the state of affairs everywhere in Hellas was such that nothing very remarkable could be done by any combination of powers and that even the individual cities were lacking in enterprise.

This is talking about the state of the Greek peninsula (called Hellas by Thucydides) before Sparta rose to prominence in the far south and took up a leading role in the defence of the country against the first invasion of the Persians (the same war in which the Battle of Marathon was fought) and the rise of Athens as a naval power.

Economically, this conclusion would seem to make sense. When power is shared among a small covey of tyrants all with their own agendae and self-interest, it's very difficult for anything particularly strong or long-lasting to arise, because you can't achieve economies of scale. By contrast, when the cities did start to ally up and tyrants were put down, they formed much greater powers than before. This, indeed, was one of the great advantages of the original US Constitution to my mind: it rejected the single tyrant of a monarch in favour of a group of elected small tyrants but because it had a number of small colonies all irrevocably contributing to the common defence, it became much stronger than if all the colonies had remained apart.

This would also, in a strange way, justify Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs on a societal basis as well as a personal psychological basis: if your society does not have sufficient power or stability to grant basic security of resources, it won't perforce have sufficient stability to support the pursuit of higher endeavours such as art, creativity, self-improvement and so forth -- not on an institutional basis. You can't build the Louvre while you're being shelled by artillery.

From page 20:

Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

Thucydides got human nature, it seems.

It's also fascinating to see echoes of our own modern conflicts in the way the Peloponnesian War got started. As with World War One, smaller powers drew greater ones into confrontation -- or the disputes of a smaller power were convenient flags for the greater powers to wave in order to press their own interests.

From page 25, talking about Corinth and Corcyra:

Unlike [Corinth's] other colonies, the Corcyreans did not give to Corinthians the usual rights and honours at public festivals or allow them the correct facilities for making sacrifices. Instead they looked down upon their mother city, claiming that their financial power at the time made them equal with the richest states in Hellas and that their military resources were greater than those of Corinth.

As Dale Carnegie would note roughly two and a half thousand years later: everyone wants to feel important.

 

[Volbeck]

How can I get this book in Greek text?

The Loeb volumes have an English translation on one page and the original Greek on the other. You can buy them, or you can probably find scans at archive.org if the volumes are old enough to have fallen out of copyright, which is highly likely.

You can also look at the Greek text online at the Perseus Project, here. If that link doesn't work, search for Thucydides at the Perseus Project and you should be able to find it.

 

[Andreas]

How can I get this book in Greek text?

The Loeb volumes have an English translation on one page and the original Greek on the other. You can buy them, or you can probably find scans at archive.org if the volumes are old enough to have fallen out of copyright, which is highly likely.

You can also look at the Greek text online at the Perseus Project, here. If that link doesn't work, search for Thucydides at the Perseus Project and you should be able to find it.

I can't believe that there are 2-3 English translations and not a single modern Greek translation so far. :s
Oh well, I will just get the English translation then.
Thanks for the link anyway.

 

[germanico]

I started the $0.00 Kindle version yesterday.

So far I only can say that the style reminds me of Herodotus.

 

[Papaya]

Found it at the library $0

 

[Pareto]

delete

 

[PolymathGuru]

People need to keep in mind how hard it can be to track dates back than. The Battle of New Orleans was fought two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed. This is over 2,000 years after the Peloponnesian War.

Besides, the important part is the lessons learned, not the dates.

 

[The Man w/ the Golden Gun]

Anyone who has been through Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power will recognize the Corcyran dispute as the example used in Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people's self interest, never to their mercy or gratitude.

You'll read that the Corinthians requested that Athens pay its moral debts, for Corinth aiding Athens with 20 warships previously. Corinth also reasoned that Athens ought to honor its relationship with Corinth, lest other colonies under Athens' umbrella rue and rise up against this betrayal. Athens ought to treat others as it would want to be treated-it should honor the Golden Rule.

Corcyra had no previous relations with Athens, and preferred neutrality. But it presented its arguments so as to let Athens know that an alliance with Corcyra was in Athens' best interest. Athens may have had the largest navy, but just how much more powerful would their naval force be when the second strongest navy of the Corcyrans were added?

In the end the Athenians chose to ally with Corcyra-it was a matter of practicality.

Someone asked how this applies to your life. When asking for help (especially from someone of a higher status than you), you need to let them know why an alliance with you is beneficial to them. It's not that you've been in a biology research lab before, it's that you have 2 years experience studying and working with yeast genetics, with solid grades and experiments as evidence. You could step into the lab of a professor interested in gene regulation and help design an experiment on the friggin spot, saving them mental work.

And there's no reason (besides pity) why a higher status person would honor the Golden Rule.

On a side note, Greene made an insightful point in citing this dispute, but he certainly painted the history to fit his narrative, mentioning that whomever Athens allied itself with would surely win the war, Corinth vs. Corcyra.

Thucydides doesn't describe the outcome of the battle as zero sum. Corcyra nearly got the shit pummeled out of them, and would have bit the dust were it not for last minute Athenian reinforcements. In the end, both Corcyra and Corinth claimed victory, Corinth because it sunk many of the Corcyran fleet, and Corcyra because it turned back the Corinthian assault.

 

[Dallas Winston]

Would it be advantageous to read Herodutus' "The Histories" or Thucydides book first?

Which war occurred first?

 

[PolymathGuru]

Would it be advantageous to read Herodutus' "The Histories" or Thucydides book first?

Which war occurred first?

Order doesn't matter for now. It was a choice by the book club to read The History of the Peloponnesian War.

For the record, the Persian-Greco wars occurred first for the record. In response, the Delian League was formed in response to safeguard the Greek City states from future Persian invasions.

However, due to conflict of interests in the Delian League led to the Peloponnesian War. Although you should read The Histories as well to add to your knowledge.

 

[Mentavious]

I'll be joining in as well.

 

[storm]

Some random thoughts thus far:

Page 17 of Book One:

Consequently security was the chief political principle in these governments, and no great action ever came out of them - nothing, in fact, that went beyond their immediate local interests, except for the tyrants in Sicily, who rose to great power. So for a long time the state of affairs everywhere in Hellas was such that nothing very remarkable could be done by any combination of powers and that even the individual cities were lacking in enterprise.

This is talking about the state of the Greek peninsula (called Hellas by Thucydides) before Sparta rose to prominence in the far south and took up a leading role in the defence of the country against the first invasion of the Persians (the same war in which the Battle of Marathon was fought) and the rise of Athens as a naval power.

I was just reading this section today. Thucydides writes that at the time almost all greek city states were tyrannies, and that the tyrants were mostly concerned with keeping their holdings safe.

Later he explains what he means by enterprise. It amounts, mostly, to expansion (typical border conflicts), sending out colonies and establishing imperialist relations such as tribute (in the case of athens) or puppet state (in the case of sparta).

It can be concluded that he claims that oligarchies and democracies are more expansionist and less safe than tyrannies.

Does this agree with history?

 

[Paracelsus]

Some random thoughts thus far:

Page 17 of Book One:

Consequently security was the chief political principle in these governments, and no great action ever came out of them - nothing, in fact, that went beyond their immediate local interests, except for the tyrants in Sicily, who rose to great power. So for a long time the state of affairs everywhere in Hellas was such that nothing very remarkable could be done by any combination of powers and that even the individual cities were lacking in enterprise.

This is talking about the state of the Greek peninsula (called Hellas by Thucydides) before Sparta rose to prominence in the far south and took up a leading role in the defence of the country against the first invasion of the Persians (the same war in which the Battle of Marathon was fought) and the rise of Athens as a naval power.

I was just reading this section today. Thucydides writes that at the time almost all greek city states were tyrannies, and that the tyrants were mostly concerned with keeping their holdings safe.

Later he explains what he means by enterprise. It amounts, mostly, to expansion (typical border conflicts), sending out colonies and establishing imperialist relations such as tribute (in the case of athens) or puppet state (in the case of sparta).

It can be concluded that he claims that oligarchies and democracies are more expansionist and less safe than tyrannies.

Does this agree with history?

I think this is a sort of self-fulfilling proposition since beyond a domain of a certain size it's impossible to hold it in true direct fiat without the cooperation of others or having subordinates entrusted with considerable power. Even dictators -- tyrants -- in the most extreme sense require the support or intimidation of their subordinates in order to rule anything larger than a small province; it's a big reason why so many dictators in our own time periods engage in heavy nepotism when filling positions of power within a regime -- because it's less likely a family member will betray you than a stranger. Consider Saddam's iron grip on Iraq, heavily buttressed by his cousins, brothers, etc.

Consider medieval England. The UK basically was consolidated under a series of fiat rulers -- kings. Alfred the Great did not have to answer to any Parliament. From memory the first time any of the English lords formally stood up to their king and wrested away some of his power was when they forced John I to sign the Magna Carta in 1215. Real democracy in England was not achieved until around the time they decapitated Charles I, who even at his show trial conducted himself in a dignified fashion and queried the legal jurisdiction of Parliament to try him. Yet England was relentlessly expansionist even during the medieval period; whole generations of English kings right up to Henry V pushed territorial claims in France.

Across all the major medieval kingdoms, to a greater or lesser extent a king had to rely upon the allegiance, funds, and arms of his lords in order to conduct expansionist wars, but I don't think Thucydides would have recognised this form of government as a democracy. He might have characterised it as an oligarchy, perhaps, especially in situations like France or Poland where the king was more or less pushed around by his lords and lacked very little power of his own.

I'd conclude Thucydides is making more of a logistical comment than a philosophical or political one here. Tyrants want and claim absolute power over their holdings. That can only be maintained over a small area, since absolute power will always be challenged by someone. Absolute power over a wider area can only be exercised with loyal subordinates or with extremely efficient institutions, and is therefore going to be much harder for one man to set up. I have no doubt that if a tyrant believed he could exercise full power over a neighbouring region he would do so without a second thought -- but for the lack of logistical capacity to do so. Democracies and oligarchies make it logistically easier to exercise that power over a wider area because power is shared among several individuals, none of whom can jump over the others, so therefore, in that sense, there is more risk of a democracy or oligarchy going to war because it's capable of holding more territory at once. On the other hand, I don't think a tyranny is much "safer" for those living in it necessarily, because supreme fiat power residing in one man is coupled with supreme vulnerability: kill the one man and power passes to another. Therefore a supreme ruler has to be much more paranoid than a democracy and hold his citizens right to heel in order to feel secure.

 

[NilNisiOptimum]

I'm reading the public domain Gutenberg edition. I came across this gem in the first chapter:

So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.

Thucydides says this as a preface to to own inquiries into the events of history. However, it is ironic to note that we are all on the business end of the same sentiment today. The barbarians at the gates, DDoS-ing the forum, would like to believe that we are the lowest of the low, because that was the first story they had heard. The slightest investigation would reveal that is not what we are. That we see what is around us and choose a different path, leading to self-betterment.

 

[Paracelsus]

I'm reading the public domain Gutenberg edition. I came across this gem in the first chapter:

So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.

I strongly suspect the same quote as I've taken earlier in this thread, from my Penguin edition, which is apparently the Warner translation:

Most people, in fact, will not take trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.

Just taking a moment to underline about translations here. The Gutenberg edition of Thucydides is the Richard Crawley translation from nearly 150 years ago. Understandable, since Gutenberg can only stock books that are in the public domain, of which Crawley's translation would be one: Crawley lived from 1840-1893, while Warner's translation is from the 1960-70s.

To me, even allowing for the fact it's nonfiction we're talking about, that Crawley translation reads better. It's got a better rhythm, it flows off the tongue easier, and doesn't make you draw a breath in a terribly inconvenient spot. By contrast, the Warner one just feels a bit dry and dead as a sentence. Maybe that's better for a historical text. I'm not sure as yet.

And that's one sentence out of Thucydides, with two guys looking at exactly the same piece of text. The shades of meaning are entirely different. And it's this sort of thing that makes me despair of reading great literature from other languages. I particularly roll my eyes when literati try to tell me that "Tolstoy" wrote a magnificent passage in War and Peace or such. If I'm reading it in English, it's not fucking Tolstoy who wrote it at all. It's a translator's interpolation and best guess at what Tolstoy intended. And the problem is that most translators probably don't have an equivalent command of English and understanding of rhythm and metre that Tolstoy did of Russian. And that's before we get to the problems of trying to find precise equivalents in English for Russian expressions, idioms, plays on words, and the like.

I did find a quick summary of the most prominent translations out there on the Net:

Thomas Hobbes' 1628 version. Although made over 300 years ago this translation is still considered a classic by many in the English-speaking world. Hobbes is best known for writing "Leviathan" that classic work on Politics that all College students in the Western world for the past 200 years had to read. Do you like Shakespeare? If so give this edition a try. Hobbes vigorous and lively Jacobean English prose will enchant those more literary minded souls - however, Hobbes version has been noted for some inaccuracies due to his lack of proper understanding of the original Greek language text.

William Smith's 1754 translation. Most know of Crawley and Hobbes works but Smith's excellent 18th century version has been almost forgotten. I think you can only get it in a used edition on abebooks dot com. Smith's prose is as majestic as you you expect for a 18th century translation. While a bit hard to read for most modern readers Smith's prose is worth the effort if you stick with him. Some things were not meant to be "dumbed down". I compare reading Smith's Thucydides to plowing through Whiston's translation of Josephus.

The mid-Victorian (1874) Richard Crawley version is the one that most English speaking people were familiar with until the Penguin Books edition came out. This is a much easier version to understand than the Hobbes and Smith translations. While still retaining a very formal prose style it captures the Greek much more accurately than any previous version. This translation has the best balance between literary style and accuracy to the original text. This is the edition that many of our Grandparents and Great Grandparents read in school or College. Modern Library puts out a very affordable edition.

Rex Warner's Penguin edition. This is the version offered here. Warner is excellent for those who want to avoid the archaic and more challenging prose of Hobbes, Smith, or Crawley. He is very clear and lucid in his rendition of the text. This edition is more suitable for modern readers who want an easy to read prose that maintains accuracy. I think that Warner's translation is the only serious rival to Richard Crawley's version. For those of you who are first embarking on your exploration of Thucydides I would recommend this edition.

Added to this, there was this comment--

This is a solid synopsis of the Hobbes, Smith, Crawley, and Warner translations. However, there are far more than four noteworthy translations available to the English-language reader. Steven Lattimore's 1998 translation, published by Hackett, has won scholarly acclaim for its fidelity to the Greek original. Having read Thucydides in the original, I very much agree - Lattimore attempts to retain Thucydides' sentence structure and use of participles where other translators noted for accuracy (such as Crawley) often substitute more characteristically English syntax. Another is Benjamin Jowett's 1881 translation, which a number of important commentaries (Hornblower in particular) use as a standard reference. Walter Blanco's 1998 translation with Norton is another high-profile option. Hobbes, Smith, Crawley, and Warner are indeed four "main" translations. But they are certainly not the only main ones available.

The Landmark Thucydides uses the Crawley translation.

 

[Dallas Winston]

Roosh wrote a good article on ROK a few years back about the Landmark edition:

http://www.returnofkings.com/6591/12-great-quotes-from-the-landmark-thucydides

 

[NilNisiOptimum]

Paracelsus, I looked back and I agree. We're talking about the same passage. Indeed a bit dim for not having recognized it.

That in turn leads to why I prefer to have multiple translations of the Bible handy. While the modern New International Version may be more suitable to modern readers, the King James is unrivaled in its use of language. In addition, I've heard the Bible used around 6,000 different words in its original Greek andnL Hebrew, while most English translations used around 2,500 resulting in, for lack of a better term, a loss of fidelity in the language. I'll be interested to see what differences we're able to spot.