How to think about war with Thucydides

Part XVI of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series

[Based on How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy, by Thucydides, translated by Johanna Hanink. Full book series here.]

When I was growing up in Italy I studied ancient Greek history. My teachers, unwittingly or not, instilled in me the belief that the Athenians were “the good guys” and the Spartans not so much. After all, Athens was a democracy, and we all agree that democracy is the best form of government, right? Sparta, by contrast, was a militaristic timocracy, that is, it was ruled by a property owning elite. And even Plato (in Republic, book VIII, 545b-550b) lists it as the first form of unjust government.

But then I read Thucydides’s famous History of the Peloponnesian War, and suddenly Athens didn’t look so much as a knight in shining armor anymore. Indeed, it looked like a not-so-subtly imperialist state intent in “exporting” democracy by way of armed conflict. No wonder so many have drawn a parallel between ancient Athens and the modern United States.

In fact, that parallel has been made both by critics and supporters of American imperialism, with both sides invoking Thucydides as their esteemed forerunner. As Johanna Hanink, the translator of How to Think about War for Princeton…