Ep. 0287: ‘The Mad Dream of Conquest,’ Pt I

Death raged in every shape, and as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which violence did not go.

Sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it.

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur.

Later on, one may say the whole Greek world was convulsed, struggles being everywhere made by the popular leaders 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 always occurred and always will occur as long as the nature of mankind remains the same, though in a severer or milder form and varying in their symptoms according to the variety of the particular cases." In peace and prosperity, states and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities.

But war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough master that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes.

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 supporter.

Prudent hesitation, specious cowardice.

Moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness.

Ability to see all sides of a question, incapacity to act on any.

Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness.

Cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defense.

The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy.

His opponent, a man to be suspected.

To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head.

To divine a plot still shrewder.

But to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.

In short...

To forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was lacking, was equally commended.

Until even blood became a weaker tie than party.

from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve.

For such associations sought not the blessing derivable from established institutions, but were formed by ambition to overthrow them.

And the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime." The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence.

Revenge, also, was held of more account than self-preservation.

Oaths of reconciliation, being only offered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand.

But when the opportunity arose, he who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one.

Since considerations of safety apart, success by treachery won him the prize for superior intelligence.

Indeed, it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.

The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition, and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention." The leaders in the city made the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy.

But they sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish.

And, stopping at nothing in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in direct excesses.

In their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not limiting them to what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking, with equal readiness, the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour.

Thus religion was in honor with neither party, but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation.

Meanwhile, the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel or because envy would not suffer them to escape.

Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Greek countries by reason of the troubles.

The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared, and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellows.

To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon nor oath that could command respect.

But all parties, dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defense than capable of confidence.

In this contest, the blunterwits were most successful.

Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate, and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once, boldly, had recourse to action.

while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure by action what policy could provide, often fell victims to their lack of precaution.

In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the cities... human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice and the enemy of all superiority, since revenge would not have been set above religion and gained above justice, had it not been for the fatal power of envy.

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Book Three No other struggle can provide such military lessons for the present as the Peloponnesian War.

Of course, it was a Balkans-type mess, but also a conflict involving two great superpowers, as well as a war of terror, of dirty fighting in a Hellenic third world, of forcing democracy down the throats of sometimes unwilling states, and domestic and cultural upheavals at home brought on by frustrations of fighting abroad.

Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other, How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

What Athens was in miniature, America will be in magnitude.

Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791.