Sack the commons

When I was still in school, our cruel and sadistic master would, if in a cruel and sadistic mood, make us translate something from Θουκυδίδης. I would like to say I appreciate it now, but that wouldn't be true. However, the thing about schoolboys and classics is that you tend to only get to see paragraphs, stanzas and nothing near the whole. Most people, if asked to list the books they hate, will trot out whatever they were forced to examine in school.

This is different. I have always loved 'The History of the Peloponnesian War', but have never read it in its entirety, nor indeed in English. Now I have, and here is me, in the second paragraph, giving away what I am reviewing here. If you are ever wandering around stately homes, Wimpole Hall, in the flatness of Cambridgeshire, has a rather great secondhand bookshop, which carries very obscure, bizarre and awesome books. Not that Θουκυδίδης is any of those, at least not in the circles I move in. Far be it for me, once again, to rail against the arrogance of modernity, and their blinkered unknowingness. And 'The History of the Peloponnesian War' lays that out for me. Again.

This book has its problems, but those are easily ignored. The details of the battles are scanty, and the intervening periods glossed over. He does have a lot of ground to cover, so I guess that is fine. But there is one major reason to read this, and read it in context. The politics. The arching, sweeping, genius of politics.

It raised my hopes, my interest, my love of declaration every time I got to the end of a paragraph and saw '...and thus did the Athenians speak:' Not that I am downgrading the Lacedaemonians, I just use the Athenians as an example, so I don't have to write '...and thus did the (INSERT PEOPLE WHO ARE ADDRESSING THE ASSEMBLY HERE):'. As that would be clumsy, so now, I amn't writing that. Of course, when Θουκυδίδης writes 'and thus spoke Brasidas, who spoke well, even though he was a Spartan' you have to laugh. The only humour in a book of great losses, whole city-states being wiped out, islands conquered and much slaying of all the males, along with slavery for the women and children. Yes, yes, it raises a smutty smirk when you also read that the Lesbians put out to sea to hassle and agitate. Damned Lesbians, never making up their minds.

But what of these set-piece speeches? Nothing changes, as then as today. Lying politicians, out for all they can get, for their own cause. Machinations, intrigues and plots. You are swept along by the speeches, believe in their rhetoric, and persuaded by the arguments. And then again in the envoy's responses. The back-and-forth, posturing and positioning, not any different from diplomacy today. Except, the speeches then were better, and you can get the impression of the different styles of governing used, the various takes on fledgling democracy, the oligrachies of Laconia, the self-interest of different regions, the ancient animosities, all laid out in the eloquence of practised speakers. All men, of course, and all older men, too. The promises made to the Helots, the slaves and the underclasses. The women aren't forgotten, but are represented mostly as whirling dervishes who throw roof tiles in defence of their cities.

An exercise in looking at the abuse of power, filtered through a fine literary twist. Is this real history? Sure, in the way that any historical record is. Bias, superiority, denegration. All there. But the language, the beautiful verbose language, used for the advantage of gain, seductive and demeaning, overbearing and above all, read as it would be spoken to an assembly. We have nothing on them for speeches, the intensity of their feelings.

An exercise in looking at revolution, filtered through alliances and treaties, forever broken. States aligning themselves for their own gain, ignoring obligations, and trying their best to undermine everyone else. Where by everyone, they mean Hellenes. Everyone outside are just barbarians. The elitism, the confidence, the sheer audacity of their strength in knowledge and surety.

There is still an audience for, I truly believe that. If not, there should be. This all happened two and a half thousand years ago. The echoes of which we still feel today. The echoes of which we should still feel today. The echoes of which resound in every dealing of every country. But they had better speakers.

Links to the pictures used, taken by me in Cyprus in the summer of 2010. Alas not the Peloponnese:
Mosaic
Thistle things