Restoring Thucydides: Testing Familiar Lessons and Deriving New Ones. Andrew R. Novo and Jay M. Parker. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2020.
I own several editions of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, including a well-used copy of Rex Warner’s Penguin translation I have read and reread since graduate school. Thucydides’ work is complex, difficult (in both the original Greek and English translations), and, as a result, open to diverse interpretations. As such, I welcome works like Andrew R. Novo and Jay Parker’s Restoring Thucydides, which aims to “push back against the oversimplification and decontextualization of Thucydides,” in print media and scholarship to help scholars and policy makers understand the complexities of Thucydides’ text.[1] The authors strive to demonstrate that Thucydides’ text is not a machine into which modern problems can be plugged in and answers calculated. At the same time, they wish to present a set of lessons that will be useful for readers who may want to consult Thucydides when dealing with national security issues. Having established this goal, Novo and Parker are quick to declare their work does not intend to rebut Graham Allison’s Destined for War: Can American and China Escape Thucydides’ Trap?, though it seems that work helped inspire this one.
The book’s organization is straightforward. In the introduction and chapter one, the authors cover the work’s goals and methods, and introduce Thucydides as an author. The next five chapters examine specific lessons or precepts derived from Thucydides, the war he described and compare them to Thucydides’ text, as well as events before, during, and after the Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BCE.[2] These chapters cover: the bi-polarity of Thucydides, power and fear in Thucydides, Thucydides’ portrayal of the interplay of domestic politics with foreign policy, the “realism” of Thucydides, and the results of hegemonic wars as seen through the lens of Thucydides’ successors. The authors chose these topics because they are frequently used in textbooks, scholarship, and public policy debates, and therefore suitable for the authors’ purpose of confronting misconceptions regarding Thucydides.[3] In chapter seven, the work concludes with seven take-aways a reader can use when evaluating policy decisions through a Thucydidean lens.[4]
Overall, the book does a good job in showing how Thucydides’ text has been reduced to a few sound bites, such as “the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must,” and that these ideas are not necessarily reflective of Thucydides’ thought or the events of Greek history in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Each chapter provides an overview of its specific talking point, supported by references to current international relations scholars and some classical scholarship and followed by a review of the appropriate sections of Thucydides/episodes of Greek history to show how they do not match the neat characterizations of later scholars. As a result, the authors end up challenging commonly held assumptions in international relations purportedly based on Thucydides. For example, in chapter six Novo and Parker confront the notion that a “hegemonic transition crisis,” such as the Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BCE, results in a prolonged period of peace accompanied by social and political transformations.[5] They disprove this notion by discussing how the period that followed the Peloponnesian War was filled with conflict.[6] Xenophon, a fellow Athenian and historian who continued Thucydides’ History, characterizes the period following the Peloponnesian War as one of “uncertainty and confusion.”[7]
Additionally, Novo and Parker subvert long held beliefs about Thucydides’ text by underscoring the importance of domestic politics and management of allies. Chapters two, three, and in particular four and five highlight the connection between internal policy considerations, such as relationships with allies or domestic politics, and foreign policy decisions made by Athens and Sparta in the course of the conflict. For instance, in chapter two the authors discuss how Sparta’s concerns about the allegiance of Corinth as well as its own population problems helped push the city into war.[8] Such an emphasis challenges the supposed broader lessons of Thucydides’ text by showing how the decisions were made as a result of a specific moment and personalities, rather than due to structural truths of international relations.[9] Novo and Parker correctly point out that such misapplications come from scholars’ desires to fit Thucydides’ text into either a specific geo-political situation, such as the Cold War, or a specific school of thought, such as realism.[10] Thus, the work achieves its goal of nuancing the text of Thucydides and the events of the Peloponnesian War, and begins to introduce the complexity of Thucydides to its audience.
I also appreciate Novo and Parker’s attempts to contextualize Thucydides in his time by using contemporaneous authors, such as Athenian playwrights, to show how the events of the Peloponnesian War were viewed by the wider Athenian population. In their discussion of Thucydides’ realism and Athens’ conquest and subsequent slaughter and enslavement of the island of Melos in 416/15 BCE in chapter five, they point out that these actions were critiqued on the Athenian stage. Euripides’ Trojan Women, produced in 415 BCE, laments and warns against the destruction of cities. Such discussion, I think, nuances how we interpret Thucydides’ famous Melian dialogue.
Despite these accomplishments, the book’s presentation of information can be, at times, simplistic. First, the authors fail to recognize that some of the truisms they address originate from Thucydides himself. For example, in Chapter Two, “Thucydides and Bi-polarity,” Novo and Parker seek to prove the Greek world during the Peloponnesian War was a multi-polar one, not a bi-polar one, as is often portrayed. The argument itself is solid; the authors show how modern scholars have accepted the idea that Thucydides’ world was bi-polar, and how Thucydides’ presentation of the Greek world does not fit the definitions these scholars have come up with for bi-polarity outside of Thucydides.[11] The authors, however, do not address Thucydides’ own declaration at the start of the History that, “the rest of the Hellenic world was committed to one side or the other; even those who were not immediately engaged were deliberating on the courses of action they were to take later.”[12] He reiterates this idea, when he emphasizes that following the Persian War, the Greek world was divided between the Athenians and the Spartans, and that once fighting broke out, the unaligned powers eventually chose one side or the other.[13] These statements present the Greek world on the eve of Peloponnesian War as bi-polar. At the very least, it is easy to see how scholars arrived at that conclusion. Even though I agree with Novo and Parker’s argument that Thucydides’ world is best understood as multi-polar, I would have liked to see them address this seeming contradiction of Thucydides’ statements and his presentation of events. They commit the same oversight when chastising writers for reducing the Peloponnesian War to a conflict between a land power, Sparta, and a naval power, Athens, while not acknowledging that this is exactly how Thucydides presents the conflict.[14]
Second, though the authors incorporate some classical scholarship, their bibliography is thin. This is unfortunate as classical scholarship has much to offer. For example, Gregory Crane’s 1998 Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity: The Limits of Political Realism, focuses on the realism of Thucydides that Novo and Parker discuss in Chapter Five. Lisa Kallet-Marx’s Money, Expense, and Naval Power in Thucydides supports their goal of examining the impact of domestic policy on foreign affairs found in Thucydides. Finally, Tim Rood’s 2002 Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation examines how Thucydides constructs his narrative in a way to direct the reader’s attention to the lessons he wants them to take away by highlighting the interplay of motivations, decisions, and consequences on which Novo and Parker focus. Incorporating such analysis would have reinforced their points about appreciating the intricacies of Thucydides’ analysis.
Finally, there are some small points, omissions, and choices by the authors that might be questioned. There are some typos, for example. On page 26 the authors present the Greek word oligos (the few) as o ligos. The book also leaves out some important facts. In chapter one, when discussing the causes of the Peloponnesian War from 431-404 BCE, it says Potidaea revolted from Athens, while leaving out that this happened due to Athenian provocation—Athens had made excessive demands of Potidaea out of fear the city would revolt.[15] Additionally, the Megarian Decree is left out as cause of the war.[16] The decree prohibited any ship from Megara, a Spartan ally, from trading with Athens or an Athenian ally, and the decree is portrayed as Thucydides presents it as a major reason for the war.[17] With regard to odd editorial choices, the authors refer to Plutarch as “the priest at Delphi whose writings are intellectual descendants of The History,” which is a little reductionist given that Plutarch is recognized as one of the most influential Mediterranean writers of the second century CE, and whose Lives of Greeks and Romans is still read today.
In sum, this book responds to the recent upswing in interest in Thucydides in international relations and public circles, and seeks to get international relations scholars more engaged in the nuances of Thucydides.[18] It presents common assumptions made from Thucydides’ text, demonstrates how the reality of the situation in Thucydides’ text and in Greece at the time was more complicated, and gives readers some take-aways to consider when contemplating how to apply the lessons of Thucydides. Speaking directly to international relations scholarship and theory in a way that few classical scholars would, the work is good for those who want a book that addresses the specific ways in which international relations scholars and the media interpret Thucydides. However, the work's simplifications and omissions impair its overall impact. For those interested in a better overall view of Thucydides and the complexity of his work, I recommend The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, an edited volume containing essays from some of the foremost classical and ancient history scholars, which includes discussions of Thucydides’ relevance to international relations theory.
William D. Burghart is an Associate Teaching Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, at the University of Washington, Tacoma.
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Header Image: Thucydides monument at the Bavarian State Library (Wikimedia)
Notes:
[1] Andrew R. Novo and Jay M. Parker, Restoring Thucydides: Testing Familiar Lessons and Deriving New Ones (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2020), 3-7.
[2] As the authors note, there were actually a few Peloponnesian wars. The first was between Athens and Sparta and their allies between 460-445 BCE. The war Thucydides describes, a series of conflicts between 431-404 BCE (there was a period of peace between 421 and 415 BCE), has come to be known as the Peloponnesian War. Ibid., 26.
[3] Ibid., 17.
[4] Ibid, 173-4.
[5] Ibid., 160.
[6] Ibid., 159-169.
[7] Xenophon, A History of My Times, trans. Rex Warner (New York: Penguin, 1979), 403 (Xe., Hell., 7.5.27).
[8] Novo and Parker, Restoring Thucydides, 56-68.
[9] Ibid., 64-65.
[10] Ibid., 12, .
[11] Ibid., 49-56.
[12] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (New York: Penguin, 1972), 35 (Thuc., 1.1.1).
[13] Ibid., 46 (Thuc., 1.18.3).
[14] Novo and Parker, Restoring Thucydides, 102. Cf. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 45-46 (Thuc., 1.18.2).
[15] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 68 (Thuc., 1.56.2).
[16] Novo and Parker, Restoring Thucydides, 29.
[17] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 118 (Thuc., 1.139.1).
[18] Novo and Parker, Restoring Thucydides, 17, 172.