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2015, Greek Historiography, Wiley Blackwell, T. Scanlon author.
Ashgate Companion to War
This chapter focuses on less popularised aspects of Athenian hegemony and decline, starting from the capture of hegemony after the Persian wars, exploring specific strengths and weaknesses of the Athenian system, and debating the causes and the effects of that violent architect of hegemonic decline, the Peloponnesian war. The chapter sheds light on the disastrous effects of the hunt for regional hegemony and power for Ancient Greek city states, the role of political innovation through the establishment of knowledge networks in Ancient Athens, both as an enabling force to capture hegemony, but also as a factor for inciting fear and suspicion in Athens’ own allies, in their fluctuating relationship with Sparta and elsewhere, especially with the halt of that innovation by war, resulting in Athenian hegemonic decline.
2020, VoegelinView
Thucydides is generally not considered a philosopher in the sense that Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle are. David Bolotin, for instance, said, “[Thucydides] is not generally thought of as a political philosopher.” Yet his only work, The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, is the densest and most profound work that deals with philosophy from antiquity. If political philosophy concerns itself with the nature of the human city, as Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics do, then Thucydides’ work stands alongside those canonical classics as a volume concerned with the question of the human city and is therefore a work of political philosophy.
Detailed account of the Confederacy of Delos, including its nature, scope, origins, and history from the Thirty Years Peace between Athens and Sparta down to the start of the Ten Year's War. As with my other general articles on this site, I wrote this for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, because I find most encyclopedia entries inadequate.
The purpose of my dissertation is to analyse the negative comments concerning Pericles; the 5th Century BCE Athenian statesman and general. This will involve an assessment of both ancient and modern writers. It will include an exploration of his early career as well as the decisions he made whilst in high office. His personal life will also be examined to clarify to what extent it affected his judgement in politics. Larger themes such as Athenian Imperialism and financial greed will also be taken into account to confirm if Pericles' actions were all just simply part of the current social-political landscape of the polis of Athens. The eventual aim of my dissertation is to evaluate these various assessments and judge if there is substantial weight to them.
2011, Classical Antiquity
2015, MA dissertation
This master thesis focuses on the first book of Thucydides’ History. It is a theoretical approach that treats the work as a narrative with obvious literary qualities. These literary qualities are traced in the complex structure of the first book and the least historical parts of the work, the reconstructed speeches, which are seen as an exercise of dialectic among the protagonists of the war, pertaining to serve not the historicity of the account alone, but the intended argumentation of the writer and the emplotment of the story, as well. The speeches in direct discourse will be called thedirect dialectic level. This paper traces a second, indirect dialectic level, which is the result of the authorial comments that complement the dialectical parts of the work and constitutes a communication between the author and the reader: the author leads through a specifically structured text, while the reader follows. Having argued about this complex communication, this master thesis supports that the first book can be thus characterized as a readerly text, according to Barthes’ structuralist theory, and attempts to apply to the first book of the History the five codes of Barthes’ structuralist approach to narratives.
2001, D.R. McCann and B. S. Strauss (eds.), Democracy and War: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War (Armonk, N.Y. and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), 273- 306. Reprinted in J. Rusten (ed.) Oxford Readings in Thucydides (2009)
Granted that Thucydides' account of states and power supports the development of some sort of Realist international relations theory, the question I pose is whether reading Thucydides as a strong Realist will yield an adequate account of the complex text that is Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War. My eventual conclusion is no. I will suggest that Thucydides the "strong Realist" theorist is indeed a centrally important presence in the text. But the careful reader eventually finds Thucydides the theorist of state power (Thucydides Theoretikos) challenged and even confuted by another of the text's central authorial presences: Thucydides the historian (Thucydides Histor). Thucydides text suggests that the best theorizing will be informed and chastened by attention to the complexities and contingency that characterizes the best historical narratives.
2012, Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius
The most famous parts of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War are discursive acts: Pericles’ Funeral Oration, the Melian Dialogue, or the Mytilenian Debate. This narrative structure opens Thucydides up for an analysis based around the methodological tools of constructivism, focused on norms and discourse and the speech acts that constitute them. Drawing on the critiques of Barkin’s realist constructivism and using R.B.J. Walker and Cynthia Weber as two exemplary postmodern IR theorists, I will argue that the most fitting analytical frame for reading the History is one that roots realist constructivism in an enduring Foucauldian model of power: constitutive, diffuse, and discursive. Instead of using the modern sovereign state and modern IR theory as objects, I want to see if this specifically postmodern analysis can draw out intriguing conclusions about the Greek polity, the normative interaction of these polities, and their constitution as spatio-temporal objects through speech acts. More work needs to be done expanding on existing literature by moving beyond a constructivism focused just on norms, identity, and institutions, to a postmodern constructivism that can look at the constitution of spatio-temporal political units and territory and on how those discourses are defined and shaped by power relations.
Thucydides’ History remains the basis for numerous claims within International Relations Theory, contributing to defining concepts from the security dilemma to the dynamics of bi-polarity and hegemonic transition theory. But the historical record that underpins Thucydides’ History provides a more complex view of the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. This analysis argues that basing explanations for the Great Peloponnesian War on the premise of Spartan “fear” is incomplete. A bi-polar, hegemonic rivalry did not lock-in the two states; they existed in a complex multi-polar system. This multi-polarity allowed other actors—notably Corinth—to play a key role in the outbreak of war. It was consideration for alliances, empires, and political rivalries within the context of multi-polarity, rather than a prosaic Spartan “fear,” that were at the heart of the war. These unique characteristics combined with the misrepresentation of the historical record, make generalising from the Peloponnesian War dangerous.
Despite the rich scholarly studies about Greek warfare, not much has been written about what could be defined Greek “unconventional warfare”, especially regarding the period between the 8th and the 5th century BC. Most of the modern scholars, in fact, have been focusing on the reconstruction of the various phases of a typical battle, or have considered the strategies and tactics used at the expense of a deeper study of the actual fighting dynamics. Ultimately, this means that almost nobody has tried to relate battle patterns and their theoretical aspects, as if they were completely unrelated to each other, and investigate why some parts of Greece were more receptive to military innovation than others. This dissertation aims to solve this issue, and includes: a few considerations about unconventional warfare, as it has been defined in modern times, and an adaptation of its definition that may be applied to Greek warfare; a brief description of the various troops that composed a typical 5th century BC polis’ army, and of their role in battle; the analysis of some significant episodes of the Peloponnesian War, where the strategies and tactics applied by the commanders stand out for their innovative approach. Lastly, some considerations on how in reality these unconventional strategies and tactics are not relegated to the Peloponnesian War only: in fact, they can be found in other past conflicts. This may lead to the supposition that they are part of a diachronic military evolution, whose roots date back at least to the Homeric Poems, and whose evidence is sometimes hidden by predominant tradition of hoplite warfare.
2014, Ph.D. dissertation: Dalla guerra corinzia a quella archidamica: una visione geopolitica delle prospettive nord-occidentali di Atene
Centrata su alcuni aspetti troppo spesso lasciati in secondo piano della storia classica di Atene e in particolare della guerra archidamica, la prima fase (431-421) della guerra del Peloponneso (431-404), la tesi spazia con disinvoltura fra storia antica, geografia fisica e umana, geopolitica, polemologia. Il principale obiettivo del lavoro è l'individuazione della nascita di un embrione di pensiero geopolitico durante il periodo interessato, alla luce dell'improvviso ampliarsi delle prospettive militari e delle sfere d'influenza delle poleis greche contemporanee. Forzatamente limitata, sia per carenze organizzative sia per assenza di tempo, la dissertazione resta uno spunto interessante sul tema, che si dovrà prima o poi riprendere.
Logical argument and the presentation of the speakers’ ethos were paramount to Athenian deliberative oratory yet modern scholarship has not studied them in their interrelationship. In this paper, I examine the ways in which logical argument helped shape and promote the speakers’ ethos in Thucydidean Assembly speeches and argue that both ethos and logos contributed to the appeal of Assembly debates as verbal competitive performances (cf. Thuc. 3.38.4).
Graham Allison and Thucydides both suggest that war becomes inevitable due to the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta. Identify some elements of Athenian and Spartan strategy to show how war does or does not become inevitable.
1993
I begin with a quandary that is very familiar to Martin Ostwald: Classical Athens saw the invention of both democracy and political theory, yet while we have a number of examples of criticism of democracy, no systematic defense of democracy-no democratic theory-survives from an Athenian pen.
2016, Emotion and Persuasion in Classical Antiquity (eds. Ed Sanders & Matthew Johncock)
2009, Available at SSRN 1471392
Abstract:[enter Abstract Body] In this paper, I argue that Pericles' statesmanship offers an example of a rarer kind of ambition and the practice of statecraft that is not reducible to the extant theories of leadership in international relations. The realist perspective subjects ...
This paper examines the Spartan general Brasidas’ speech at Acanthus, a subject of Athens, in 424 BCE (Thuc. 4.84-87). Brasidas presents himself as Acanthus’ liberator while simultaneously threatening the city with military action. In effect, he forces Acanthus to be free. While many see Brasidas as a cynical agent of imperialism, Brasidas’ speech can best be understood in light of the concept of eunoia, or goodwill. For Brasidas, the eunoia for Sparta verbally expressed by Acanthus must be matched by deeds, or it is no eunoia at all. Also, Rousseau’s ideas of the General Will and forced freedom shed further light on Brasidas’ rhetoric and actions.
2004, Colum. J. Transnat'l L.
This Essay, in honor of Oscar Schachter, discusses Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War, not only glimpsing into the events surrounding the conflict but also considering how the sparring greek city-states understood and manifested laws of war. This article describes numerous customs, practices, and procedures including respect for truces, ambassadors, heralds, trophies, and various forms of neutrality the ancients adhered to during times of conflict. The greek city-states and their warriors recognized and enforced obligations concerning a city-state’s right to war (jus ad bellum) and conduct in war (jus in bello). While the ancients’ laws of war were always recorded in treaty, many of the laws were mutually recognized and formed out of custom, with respect to one’s adversary. Thucydides did not record his account for the purpose of describing ancient law, but his account provides evidence that a form of international law existed in the ancient world. It may be worth examining sources of ancient history in a comparative study of international law, as the differences between the modern world and the ancient might not be as large as once thought.
Xenophon's "Hellenika" has long suffered from neglect by political theorists (and other scholars) interested in reviving the study of the institutions and practices of 4th-century Athenian democracy. From this perspective, it appears that there is little material in the "Hellenika" useful in constructing a revised account of Athenian democracy. This essay attempts to rectify that omission by sketching out: the relationship between democracy at Athens and the design of the work as a whole; the character of political deliberation in the context of the ancient regime, including diplomatic rhetoric and foreign embassies; and how the major examples of Athenian (as opposed to Spartan or Theban) deliberation help us to see how deliberative democracy at Athens assisted in the political success of the Athenians during the first decades of the fourth century.
2010, D. Pritchard (ed.) War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 65-87
How, are we to explain documented cases in which a democracy, for example Athens in the era of the Archidamian War, does well in fierce and sustained competition? Following a recent article by Kenneth Schultz and Barry Weingast (2003), we may call this the puzzle of democratic advantage.3 This chapter argues that Thucydides addressed a version of the democratic-advantage puzzle, and did so in a way that anticipates some important modern developments in social science.
The purpose of this thesis is to suggest why Athenian oligarchs reacted against the democratic agenda of Panhellenism in 413–411. Panhellenism was a gradual process of Greek cultural unification, which took on a politicized connotation after the Persian Wars calling for the accession of a hegemon to oppose the Persian Empire. This thesis examines the differences in political ideology between oligarchs and democrats, the increasing economic burdens on oligarchs to finance the Peloponnesian War, and the rift between oligarchic restraint (sophrosyne) and democratic courage (andreia) as the reasons for the oligarchs’ opposition to Panhellenism after the failed Sicilian Expedition. By examining Thucydides’ History, various speeches of the Attic orators and Athenian plays, as well as incorporating inscriptionary evidence, this thesis shows that Panhellenism was indeed not a universally held notion in Athens, and that further study must be done on the fragmentary nature of Athenian Panhellenism in the Classical Period.
2012, Review of International Studies
Most of our knowledge of the Peloponnesian War comes from the text of Thucydides' History, yet IR scholars are strangely credulous when evaluating Thucydides' pronouncements. I explore what Thucydides does not tell us, and suggest that his text obscures important information regarding the outbreak of the war. Thucydides has a secular bias which leads him to discount the Spartan religious self-narrative, but by attending to this schema, in which Sparta sees itself in the role of the pious defender of moderation pitted against the corrupt Athenians, we gain a richer understanding of the chain of events that led to war. Contemporary scholars have too readily adopted Thucydides' perspective on this issue, but by assessing Thucydides' data using insights drawn from contemporary cognitive theories of narrative and image we see that misperceptions based in the conflicting Athenian and Spartan narratives played an important role in the escalation of the crisis.(Online publication February 21 2012)
Detailed account of the Confederacy of Delos, including its nature, scope, origins, and history from inception down to the Thirty Years Peace between Athens and Sparta. As with my other general articles on this site, I wrote this for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, because I find most encyclopedia entries inadequate.
This work traces the history of Syracuse from its foundation arguing that the city's beginning should be re-dated to the first half of the seventh century BC. The discussion also covers the Deinomenid tyranny and suggests that the expulsion of Thrasybulus was followed by at least half a decade of instability and that the subsequent democracy was inherently weak. The Syracusan role in the Peloponnesian War occupies a central position in the discussion and assesses how the Athenian invasion of Sicily could be defeated in such a decisive manner. An analysis of the rule of the tyrants Dionysius I and his son and the actions of Dion, who almost certainly brought about the end of this system of government at Syracuse unintentionally, concludes the study. This is an earlier version of the book published in 2016 without maps, plates and index.