By Marcus Alexander Templar
(Red text is emphatic)
I am sure everyone in this room has heard of Thucydides. His analysis of the political reality behind the military operations of both camps during the Peloponnesian War made him known as the father of the Realist Political thought. The same thought that war colleges around the world teach and analyze.
Thucydides states that the three greatest events related to the Peloponnesian War were fear, honor, and self-interest.
Regarding fear, Thucydides indicates that the growth of Athens pushed Sparta to launch the war. On the other hand, Pericles paid tribute to the dead soldiers delivering the most famous statement, “any place is the tomb of prominent men; they are honored not only by columns and inscriptions in their own land, but in foreign nations on memorials graven not in stone but in the hearts and minds of people.” [1]
As Thucydides put it, the personal self-interest and the personal gain of those in power was the reason that Athens was driven to oblivion. Other historians, orators and politicians have collaborated Thucydides assessment on issues of private gain versus public interest and political flattery versus frankness and honesty. Pericles died in 429 BC, long before the end of the Peloponnesian War, and he was fortunate enough not to see the shameful end of the Athenian hegemony.
According to Xenophon, Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 BC, and its allies surrendered soon after. The capitulation stripped Athens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its overseas possessions. The Athenian hegemony was over. Sparta’s allies, especially the Corinthians and the Thebans, demanded that Athens should be burnt to the ground and all its citizens enslaved. However, the Spartans, magnanimous as they were, refused to destroy a city that had done a good service at a time of great danger to Greece, alluding to the Persian Wars.
In 13 paragraphs, Thucydides enumerates what caused the Athenians’ failure. Malcolm Heath has summarized the reasons behind the failure, as follows,
a. Pericles' successors pursued projects which would bring honor and self-interest to the individual if they succeeded, but which would damage the city's war-effort if they failed; they did this out of private ambition and for private gain.
b. Pericles' unique position meant that he could speak his mind to the people. His successors, because they were competing with each other for political influence, had to say what the people wanted to hear.
c. The Sicilian expedition was defeated primarily because the Athenians at home did not provide adequate support to those in the field; this was a result of private quarrels in pursuit of political pre-eminence.
d. Even after the defeat in Sicily, Athens contrived to hold out against an apparently overwhelming coalition of opposing forces, until internal dissensions brought it down; in other words, the city defeated itself.[2]
